Highlights From The Barthel/Van Kooten Book On The Star Of Bethlehem (Part 2)

You can read part one here. You can read my review of the book at Amazon here.

- As far as I recall, none of the authors who places a date on Matthew's gospel puts it before the year 70. Instead, we get many comments like Beck's assertion that it was written "about 90 CE" (287). There's no interaction with the many good arguments for dating the gospel earlier. Matthew's similarities with the other Synoptics and differences from John make more sense if all of the Synoptics were written close together, followed by a larger timeframe before John was written. The imprecision of the prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple make more sense if Matthew was written before those events in 70 rather than a scenario in which the prophecies were fabricated in 70 or later. The prominence of Matthew's gospel in the earliest centuries of Christianity makes more sense if the gospel was circulating under Matthew's name well before John's gospel was published. Extrabiblical sources suggest a date around the middle of the century for Matthew rather than a date at the close of the century. Etc. You can read more about these and other arguments in my collection of articles on Matthew here. It's striking how so many scholars accept and assert the later dating of Matthew without making any effort to interact with counterarguments that are so substantial.

Highlights From The Barthel/Van Kooten Book On The Star Of Bethlehem (Part 1)

In October of 2014, a conference on the star of Bethlehem was held at the University of Groningen. A book came out of the conference, nearly 700 pages long and with contributions from twenty scholars in astronomy, New Testament studies, and other relevant fields. It's edited by Peter Barthel and George van Kooten, and it's titled The Star Of Bethlehem And The Magi (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2015).

I've just posted a review of the book at Amazon. What I want to do here and in another post tomorrow is provide some highlights from the book.

Another Ill-Advised Christian Movie

Aaron Adair has written a post about a potential Christian movie. The script on which the movie might be based, as described in an article here, features "an 11-year-old girl and her father who go up against a politically correct school system to prove the science behind the Star of Bethlehem". Adair explains some of the reasons why that's a bad idea for a movie. My review of Adair's book on the star of Bethlehem argues for my view of the star and discusses why scientific attempts to explain the star are problematic. If the script in question becomes a movie, I suspect it will create a lot of embarrassment for Christians, wasted time, misinformation, and opportunities for non-Christians to make Christians and the Matthew 2 account look bad.

Does The Behavior Of The People In Matthew 2 Make Sense?

Jonathan Pearce has been writing some posts lately about how the individuals mentioned in Matthew 2 wouldn't have behaved the way Matthew describes (see here, here, and the comments section of the thread here). Below are some of my comments on the subject, taken from my review of Pearce's book on the infancy narratives and what I've written elsewhere:

Problems With Hugh Ross' Explanation Of The Bethlehem Star

Hugh Ross just published a new article on the star of Bethlehem. He suggests that the star was a recurring nova, a position he argued for previously, but he updates his argument with some recent research.

I think every astronomical attempt to explain the star fails, for reasons like the ones I explained here. (The post I just linked also addresses what evidence we have for the star, so anybody interested in that subject may want to read the post as well.) Here's Ross' two-sentence dismissal of the view that the star was a supernatural entity, which is my position:

A Report On The Groningen Star Of Bethlehem Conference

Several months ago, I mentioned that there would be a conference on the star of Bethlehem at the University of Groningen in October. That conference was held last week. Aaron Adair is one of the scholars who attended, and he's written a report of what happened. There's a lot of significant information there, and I recommend reading the whole thing. For those who don't want to read it all, I've included some excerpts below. You can read my review of Adair's book on the star here. And here are some of his comments on the conference:

The Historicity Of The Star Of Bethlehem

Part 1: Introduction, Prior Probability
Part 2: Authorship, Date, And Genre Of Matthew
Part 3: Genre Of The Star Account, Matthew's Methodology
Part 4: Identity Of The Magi, Potential For An International Incident
Part 5: Luke's Silence, Herod's Behavior, Why The Magi Went To Jerusalem
Part 6: Evidence For The Star Account

The Historicity Of The Star Of Bethlehem (Part 6)

(Previous posts in the series: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.)

Matthew and other early sources suggest that the star of Bethlehem was a highly local supernatural phenomenon intended to guide a particular group of people, roughly similar to the pillar of fire in Exodus 13 or the angels in Luke 2. Earlier, I referred to Matthew's theme of the initial smallness of the Christian movement, starting like a small seed in Israel and expanding from there. His star account reflects that theme. Herod and the other Jerusalemites don't seem to have noticed the star. Herod doesn't know when the star appeared, and, unlike his earlier consultation of the religious leaders in Jerusalem regarding the Messiah's expected birthplace (Matthew 2:4), he goes to the magi for more information about the star (verses 7 and 16). We don't have a record of anybody other than the one group of magi in Matthew's account having noticed it. If anybody other than those magi saw the star and recognized its significance, apparently only a small number did. It doesn't seem that it was a situation in which a large group of people had access to the star and could perceive its significance by means of common astrological views, common Biblical interpretations, or something similar. Rather, only a small group saw the star and understood its significance. It seems that Matthew's star was much closer to the earth's surface than what we'd typically call a "star" today (suggested by the ignorance of the star among sources other than the magi; suggested also by the star's ability in verse 9 to lead the magi to a location smaller than the city of Bethlehem). Apparently, it appeared and disappeared (suggested by the references in verses 2 and 9 to the magi's having seen the star earlier without references to its presence again prior to verse 9; suggested also by the magi's joy upon seeing the star again in verse 10). Think of how Matthew might have described a different set of circumstances. He could have referred to many people in different regions of the world seeing the star, many visits to Jerusalem or other locations in Israel by many magi or other groups, etc. Instead, he refers to one visit by one group, and that one group refers to themselves as witnesses of the star without mentioning anybody else. Instead of describing the star as having the usual characteristics of an astronomical object, he mentions the different characteristics I've cited above. Furthermore, taking the star to be some sort of supernatural object seems to have been the dominant view of the patristic era. Patristic sources often refer to the newness of the star, refer to its distinctness from natural objects in the sky, identify the star as or associate it with one or more angels, etc. See Dale Allison, Studies In Matthew (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005), 17-41.

The Historicity Of The Star Of Bethlehem (Part 5)

(Previous posts in the series: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.)

Adair tells us that "one must wonder" why Luke doesn't report the events surrounding the Bethlehem star. Luke goes from the opening weeks of Jesus' life to an incident that occurred when he was twelve years old. The events of Matthew 2 seem to have occurred when Jesus was close to two years old (2:16). Why expect Luke to narrate something that occurred during a timeframe he wasn't covering? As Richard Burridge notes, even if an ancient biographer covers some of the events of his subject's childhood, "usually the narrative moves rapidly on to the public debut later in life" (in Joel Green, et al., edd., Dictionary Of Jesus And The Gospels [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2013], 337). Sometimes a figure's childhood wouldn't even be narrated at all, as the gospels of Mark and John illustrate. There wasn't a shortage of significant events in Jesus' life to report. The sentiment of John 21:25 surely was widespread in ancient Christianity. Luke knew more than he records in his gospel and Acts. The "we" material in Acts, for example, doesn't include everything Luke would have experienced in his travels with Paul. Luke seems to have used Mark as a source, yet he doesn't include every miracle Mark narrated. He would have known of Jesus' resurrection appearance to James, but he doesn't mention it. And the frequency of Pauline miracles in the letters of Paul suggests that Luke could have included more miracle accounts from Paul's life if he'd wanted to. He surely left out much of what he knew even in the context of events as significant as the miracles of Jesus and the apostles. Luke, like other ancient historians, was highly selective in what he reported. The absence of the star of Bethlehem events in Luke's gospel isn't much of an objection to the historicity of those events.

The Historicity Of The Star Of Bethlehem (Part 4)

(Previous posts in the series: part 1, part 2, part 3.)

Adair wants to know why "Zoroastrians from Persia" would "want to become Jews because of a Star" (1553). He goes on to argue that Zoroastrians at the time of Jesus' birth would have been uninterested in or opposed to the sort of astrology relevant to Matthew 2, that it wasn't until centuries later that they developed a more positive view of such astrology. In third-century inscriptions, "we have the leader of the magi conducting persecutions of Jews and Christians" (1593). Adair argues that if the events of Matthew 2 had occurred, then later groups affiliated with Matthew's magi should have held a higher view of Christianity.

The Historicity Of The Star Of Bethlehem (Part 3)

(You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.)

Adair gives no example of an early source interpreting Matthew's star account, or Matthew in general, as belonging to the genre of novel. In some of my posts referenced earlier, I cite evidence that early Christian and non-Christian sources assigned the gospels, including the infancy narratives, to a historical genre. In some cases, the star of Bethlehem passage in particular is addressed in a way that suggests that the passage is meant to be taken historically.

The Historicity Of The Star Of Bethlehem (Part 2)

(You can read part 1 here.)

Adair refers to our alleged ignorance of who wrote the gospel attributed to Matthew and when it was written (280). He makes an unsupported appeal to an anti-prophecy assumption, saying that Matthew's reference to the Jewish temple's destruction "forces" a post-70 date for the document (ibid.). Justin Martyr gives us "the most unambiguous early citation" of Matthew's gospel, so the gospel may have been written as late as about 155 (299). He dismisses arguments for Ignatius' use of Matthew in the early second century by appealing to how factors like the authenticity and dating of Ignatius' letters and his use of Matthew are "uncertain" and not "decisively shown" (ibid.). He also dismisses Papias and the Didache as evidence for early use of Matthew (ibid.). Matthew and Luke's birth accounts have "very little in common" (364). He faults Matthew for poor methodology. He claims that Matthew "ought to be saying why he trusts his sources over others", that "Matthew's access to reliable sources is even less likely than was the case for Suetonius" (1534). According to Adair, Matthew's gospel ranks low by the standards of ancient biography, so that "his story of Jesus's birth has to be treated with significantly more skepticism than with most any other biography from antiquity" (ibid.). He calls Matthew's methodology "terrible" (1641). Matthew reports information that makes his account seem fictional, like "the mental states of figures" and "conversations between Herod and the Magi" (1706). Matthew's "only potential sources" are Joseph and Mary (ibid.). Adair thinks the account of the magi "and perhaps the entire Gospel of Matthew" belong to the genre of novel (1772).

The Historicity Of The Star Of Bethlehem (Part 1)

(This will be a six-part series. The whole series will be linked in a single post at the end.)

Later this year, the University of Groningen will be hosting a colloquium on the star of Bethlehem. One of the participants will be Aaron Adair, who recently wrote a book arguing against the historicity of the star (The Star Of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View [England: Onus Books, 2013]). It's been getting some media attention, like here and here. The book has a foreword by Bob Berman, an astronomer. Richard Carrier calls Adair's book "the definitive takedown" of the star's historicity.