The remaining questions and maybe a few new ones took over my mind about an hour ago and I had to get up and do something about it. When exactly did that conjunction between Jupiter and Regulus occur that was the first image on the astronomy screen Rick Larson shows? He says it occurred in September of 3 BC but the shot of the rising conjunction occurred on a particular date and he doesn't give it. Was it September 3 I wonder, the same day the crescent moon appears at the feet of the sign of Virgo, which was Rosh Hashanah? This couldn't be discovered from an Ephemeris which only shows the planets and not a distant star like Regulus.
That's one question. Another is the one I've mentioned before, the sign or constellation in which the conjunction between Jupiter and Venus occurred on June 2 of 2 BC.
The more I ponder the study Rick Larson did, especially after my last post on it which helped me focus better on some elusive elements of it, the more convinced I am of this magnificent "Celestial Poem" he discovered. Here I'll just sketch it out again:
In September of 3 BC there appeared what could be called an announcement of the birth of the Messiah in the sky as the planet Jupiter, which in this context can be regarded as a symbol of God the Father, is seen making three very close passes, or conjunctions with the distant start Regulus, the word meaning King, a star that bears the name King in many different languages. (I just called it a "planet" and had to correct it, so I may have made that mistake in the other post too, have to correct it later if I can). This is apparently a fairly rare and dramatic celestial event, and it is occurring in the sign or constellation of Leo, which is symbolized as a lion. And that immediately suggests the "lion of the Tribe of Judah,: Judah being the father of the tribe from which the Messiah is prophesied to come, in the very blessing given him by his father Jacob/Israel I quoted in the previous post. So there is definitely something very portentous about the triple conjunction of Jupiter with Regulus in Leo.
A portent that is made all the more dramatic when the next sign or constellation to follow Leo on September 3 of 3 BC is Virgo with the new moon at its feet, which is the exact image seen by the apostle John as he describes it in Revelation 12, the woman "clothed with the sun" which clearly refers to the sun's being in the sign of Virgo, which it always is in September, with "the moon at her feet," which on that very date of September 3 was the new moon of Rosh Hashanah or Jewish New Year. does sort of give one goose bumps to appreciate these things. She is described further in Revelation 12 as having a crown of twelve stars on her head. This is what makes her a symbol of the nation of Israel. It harks back to the dream Joseph had in which his eleven brothers were stars that bowed down to him. I hope I'm remembering this right because I'm not going to look it up yet. The point is that the tribes of Israel are depicted as twelve stars.. In fact I think I'm going to take back my statement in the previous post that Virgo represents Mary although she was the literal bearer of the Messiah, because Israel the nation is often described as the bearer of the Messiah and this image better symbolizes the whole nation. Also, the lines of scripture that are sung in Handel's "Messiah" happen to be fresh in my mind from listening to it over the holidays: "For unto us a son is given... and His name shall be called "Wonderful, Counsellor, Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." He is given "unto us."
So Rosh Hashanah, September 3 of 3 BC certainly does appear to be the likely date of the conception of the Messiah, the date when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce her blessed appointment to be the mother of this lolng-awaited Savoir prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures reaching as far back as Eden. And at the same time, probably beginning at that very moment but it's not clear from Larson's presentation, the event is being heralded by the planet Jupiter's dance around the star Regulus in the sign of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Maybe you have to know the scriptures for this to make your hair stand on end.
And it's all capped by the discovery of the brightest "star" ever seen -- on June 2 of 2 BC nine months later, this star being the magnification of the light of the two planets Jupiter and Venus as they come together in the closest possible conjunction without the light of one cancelling out the light of the other but instead adding to it. If this really was the brightest celestial object ever seen then there is no doubt that this was the star described in the gospel of Matthew. I was hoping to find an Ephemeris online that might identify it but it's beyond the endurance of my failing eyesight if it's out there at all. What I did find didn't get anywhere near that time and date. It would be on Larson's astronomy program and he didn't identify exactly when it appeared though on his website he gives Christ's birth as June 2 so I assume that's when it appeared. He also doesn't identify the constellation or sign in which it appeared and I remain curious about that since all these things have some symbolic significance related to the events of Christ's life and death. In the previous post I guessed that if He was born in the sign of Gemini, which encompasses June 2, then its symbol The Twins could be interpreted as reflecting His two natures as God and Man. .
..
After that we see Jupiter leading the Magi to the six months old King of the Jews in the town of Bethlehem and standing over the town just as we are told the star did in Matthew 2, the standing still being the point at which the planet stopped moving forward from the point of view of someone on Earth and prepared to reverse course or go into retrograde. All these things are happening in reality in the sky right on schedule.
And the grand finale whicn leads Larson to think of it all in terms of a Celestial Poem is the rising of the sign of Virgo at the very time Jesus died on the cross, with the moon again at her feet, only this time a full moon and a full moon in eclipse, otherwise known as a blood moon.
To that I add the point that His death occurred at Passover, which in that year as Larson showed was on April 3 of 33 AD, occurring in the sign of Aries the Ram which of course reflects His mission as the Lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice to which all the sacrifices of the sacrificail system of Israel had pointed since Moses, but specifically the sacrifice of the lamb whose blood was painted on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites on the night the angel of death passed over the Israelites before their exodus from Egypt toward the Promised Land. The way all the separate strains of symbolism work together all pointing to this event is staggering.
It's all there.
"Christ Quake" is a recent film Larson did, about the earthquake that occurred at Christ's death, apparently unrelated to the astronimcal events recorded in The Star of Bethlehem. I'm still preoccupied with the star and Quake is not available for viewing online yet
