Op-Ed: Astronomers Say Jesus Born in June, Not December

Christmas should be in June, according to some astronomers who think they have found the 'Christmas star' thought to have led three Mages to Jesus' crib in a stable.

According to the Bible, three wise men followed a bright star in the sky, and in so doing, they stumbled on the newborn Jesus. The birth of Jesus is of great importance to those religious believers who subscribe to Christianity, and they have understandably tried to explain the phenomenon of the bright star. Many hypotheses have been advanced, such as a supernova or a comet, but none of these hypotheses were particularly convincing. A new hypothesis has now been published. Determining the day of birth of Jesus is problematic at best. For one, there is no historical evidence to back it up. Therefore, when he was born, or even if he was born at all, is a matter of speculation and conjecture. Assuming that he was indeed a real person, it is usually assumed that he would have been born somewhere between 3BC and 1AD. According to the Telegraph, Australian astronomer Dave Reneke and his team have calculated that a bright "sky phenomenon" did indeed occur in that period, namely a conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter. They were so close together at the time, that they would have appeared as a single "beacon of light" that had suddenly appeared. With that information in hand, and using St. Matthew's gospel as a reference, the team determined the planetary conjunction as having appeared in the constellation Leo on June 17, 2BC exactly. In order to do this, they used software that enables them reconstruct the sky at any point in the last several thousand years in order to find this conjunction. Dave Reneke does caution however, that he is not claiming that this was definitely the Christmas star. He is only saying that this is the strongest explanation of all explanations he has seen until now. He adds to that that December is an arbitrary date that has been accepted but that this doesn't mean that Jesus was indeed born in December. He also says that he is not trying to decry religion, but that his finding is actually backing it up, and he thinks that when science and religion are mixed, people are oftentimes upset, but that in this case, it could serve to reinforce their faith. It is my personal opinion that Reneke is following a somewhat bizarre line of reasoning, not unlike the machinations believers in Nostradamus' prophecies are used to concoct. Nevertheless, while this most definitely does not provide a case of any solidity for the existence of Jesus, this could be part of the circumstantial evidence to reinforce the hypothesis of Jesus' existence if and when more solid evidence is found.