by
Damien F. Mackey
G. Mackinlay, following through Isaac Newton’s principle that the Jewish teachers frequently made figurative allusions to things that were actually present,
suggested that “other allusions” unspecified by Newton, “such, for instance,
as the comparison of the Baptist to the shining of the Morning Star”,
must also indicate that the object of reference was present.
Introduction
As discussed previously, some laudable attempts have been made by scholars to identify the Nativity Star of the Magi.
The complexity of such an enterprise is apparent from Frederick (“Rick”) A. Larson’s question: Could the star have been a meteorite; a comet; a supernova; a planet; or a new star?
Whilst lawyer, Larson, will favour, for the Magi Star, the planet Jupiter, the two other scholars considered in my article:
Solid attempts to interpret the biblical sky
(3) Solid attempts to interpret the biblical sky | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Bruce Killian and G. Mackinlay, have opted for the planet Venus.
Though Venus, again, will even play a rôle in Larson’s view of a bright conjunction with Jupiter.
Frederick Larson is nothing if not thorough.
He has picked up what he has called “The Nine Points of Christ’s Star” that he believes to be the key pieces in the puzzle of the sacred text, and he says he will not be satisfied with a final scenario that does not accommodate all nine of these.
https://youtu.be/HIrwQJpD_OA
Such is Larson’s thoroughness that even eight points for him will not suffice.
His major difficulty will be with the fact that the Magi Star had stopped.
But then it occurred to him that the planets, due to the optical phenomenon known as “retrograde motion”, actually appear to stop. Mars does a loop; Venus does a backflip; Jupiter inscribes a shallow circle.
Important Chronological Notes
While Larson has his Nine Points, I have interlaced previous articles on this subject with four Chronological Notes, the most relevant one here being this first one, on retrocalculation:
* A very important comment on chronology (D. Mackey):
Studies on the Star of the Magi and on other archaeoastronomical issues, with their retrocalculations of the night skies back into BC time, assume that our AD time is fixed, and that we actually live, today, a little over 2000 years after the Nativity of Jesus Christ.
Not until revisionists like Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky came along were the standard BC calculations and ‘Dark Ages’ seriously questioned, and that has led to scholars today also rigorously testing AD time and its ‘Dark Ages’. See, e.g., Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/volatile/Niemitz-1997.pdf
and Jan Beaufort’s summary:
http://www.cybis.se/forfun/dendro/hollstein/hollstein0/beaufort/index.htm
I, whilst not necessarily agreeing with all of what these writers have to say, think that there is enough in their theses, however, and that of those to whom they refer, to prompt one seriously to question the accuracy of the received AD dates. (I have since done this in various articles).
Applying this note to Larson’s thesis, for instance, I have written:
One of Larson’s nine points, his first in fact, has to do with this tricky subject of chronology. And this area of research may be his weak link, and may actually vitiate his whole argument. Larson has determined, based on an ancient version of the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, that the Birth of the Messiah had occurred in relation to the reign of Herod in 3-2 BC (***).
*** A third chronological note
This all becomes quite irrelevant, however, if I am correct in my view of Judas Maccabeus belonging to the approximate time of the Nativity of Jesus Christ ….
Next I introduced:
Bruce Killian, Venus The Star Of Bethlehem, whilst warmly praising Larson’s effort, has offered his own criticisms of Larson’s “The Star of Bethlehem” (2021):
http://www.scripturescholar.com/VenusStarofBethlehem.pdf
….
Fredrick Larson is a lawyer and does an excellent job of selling the wrong identification of the Star of Bethlehem. He identifies the Star of Bethlehem as Jupiter.
He also notes that Jupiter is the largest of the planets, but that was unknown to the ancients who would see Venus as the most important because it was the brightest. He sees the king of the Jews identified in a month long shallow loop of Jupiter near Regulus the king star in the constellation of Leo.
It does not “crown” this star but loops near it as it appears to loop like a Spiro graph drawing continuously in the sky. He then observed a close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter to indicate the conception of Jesus and he claims these two stars coming together was the brightest star anyone had ever seen. The problem is that Venus at its inferior conjunction is brighter than these two stars together.
Finally he saw a link between the woman in Revelation 12 giving birth, but he fails to mention this happens each year and that it was not visible because it was during the day. He further presents the star guiding the magi to Bethlehem when they already knew that was where they were to go, but not identifying which of the many boys in Bethlehem was the newborn king.
The stopping of Jupiter is when it reverses and goes into retrograde motion, but this point really does not even point to Bethlehem because when do you determine that this has occurred, visually you can’t, and when during the night?
A miracle—many believe the star that guided the magi was simply a miracle. A light clearly called a star. Today we live at a time that planes fly over head all the time, God could have done this but why say a star guided them rather than an angel. It is clear from the information presented in this article that God was able from the foundation of the world to use the lights He set in the sky to guide the magi. I believe that most who hold this view do not recognize the special attributes of the planet Venus. These stars could be seen by all, but were faint, one would only see them if they were paying close attention. ....
[End of quote]
Bruce Killian would agree with Frederick Larson, though, about the Divine use of easy-to-read star tableaux.
Regarding Killian’s hard BC dates (days and months), I added, recall my earlier warning about retrocalculations.
George Mackinlay’s major contribution
By far the most important contribution of the three, though, so I believe, is that of Lieutenant-Colonel G. Mackinlay, The Magi: How they recognized Christ's star (Hodder and Stoughton, 1907).
He, too, had determined that the Star of Bethlehem was a planet, namely Venus in his case. He did not, back in his day, have the advantage of modern computer software, as has Larson, but was reliant on astronomical charts to put a date to the circumstances of Venus that he had determined had pertained to the chronology of Jesus Christ.
Mackinlay - like Larson and others, relying heavily on the Scriptures - showed just how significant Venus was as “the morning star” and “the evening star”, and he quoted texts from the prophet Micah; including that fateful text without which King Herod (the Godfather of today’s abortionists) would never have condemned to death the children of Bethlehem.
George Mackinlay also showed through Micah that the Baptist was symbolised as the morning star, heralding as it does the dawn (Christ).
He was able to determine an internal chronology of Jesus Christ, and the Baptist, based on the periods of shining of the morning star, all this in connection with historical data, seasons and Jewish feasts.
As said, the inherent weakness in such reconstructions as Larson’s, and even Mackinlay’s, is their presuming that the conventional dates for Herod and Jesus Christ are basically accurate - just as 539 BC is now wrongly presumed to be a certain date for King Cyrus of Persia - and that it is, therefore, simply a matter of finding an astronomical scenario within that conventional period and then being able to refine the dates using sophisticated modern scientific data.
Happily, though, neither Larson’s nor Mackinlay’s scenario has that odd situation of the shepherds watching their sheep out in the open, in winter, that critics seem to latch on to every Christmas in order to ridicule St. Matthew’s account.
Whilst I do not accept that Larson, Killian, or Mackinlay have managed, despite their valiant attempts, to identify the Magi Star, the contribution of Mackinlay on the chronological importance of the planet Venus I consider to be ground-breaking.
Neither Killian’s nor Larson’s efforts - worthwhile though they assuredly are - can, I believe, match the coherent consistency of Lieutenant-Colonel G. Mackinlay’s model, that shows a Divine plan at work in every major phase of the life of Jesus Christ.
Mackinlay was able to demonstrate how perfectly the eight year cycles of Venus wrap around the events of the life of Christ (who is also the “Sun of righteousness”), shining throughout the joyful occasions, but hidden during episodes of sadness and darkness.
But not only does the Divine artist make use of the planet Venus in this regard.
The Moon, too, in its various phases, and also the seasons (reflecting now abundance, now paucity), as Mackinlay has shown, also serve as chronological markers.
Mackinlay’s harmonious theory has, to my way of thinking, the same sort of inherent consistency as has Florence and Kenneth Wood’s explanation, in Homer’s Secret ‘Iliad’ (http://www.amazon.com/Homers-Secret-Iliad-Night-Decoded/dp/0719557801), that the battles between the Greeks and Trojans as described in The Iliad mirror the movements of stars and constellations as they appear to fight for ascendancy in the sky.
Since George Mackinlay’s thesis is far too detailed to do justice to it here, with all of its diagrams and detailed astronomical explanations always interwoven with the Scriptures, the interested reader is strongly advised to read the entire book.
Mackinlay commences with the example of Saint John the Baptist and his association also with the morning star. (This symbolism has an Old Testament precedent, too, in Joseph’s astronomical dream, Genesis 37:9-10, according to which people are represented by heavenly bodies). Let us begin.
Simile of St. John the Baptist to the Morning Star
The figurative use of the morning star in reference to the Baptist is evident from the prophet Malachi’s description of the Christ’s forerunner: “My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me” (Malachi 3:1); because, as noted by Mackinlay (p. 39), “the same figure of speech is supported by Malachi 4:2, where the Christ is spoken of as the Sun of righteousness, who shall arise with healing in His wings”. That this definitely is the right association of scriptural ideas is shown by the reference made by Zechariah, the father of St. John the Baptist (Luke 1:76), to these two passages in the Old Testament. Thus, on the occasion of St. John’s circumcision, Zechariah prophesied of him: “You shall go before the face of the lord”, and, two verses later, he likens the coming of the Christ to “the Dayspring [or Sunrising] from on high”, which shall visit us.
We note further that this same passage from Malachi, with reference to the Baptist, was quoted also by Mark the Evangelist (1:2); by the angel of the Lord who had appeared to Zechariah before his son’s birth (Luke 1:17); by the Baptist himself (John 3:28); by Jesus during his ministry (Matthew 11:10; Luke 7:27); and by the Apostle Paul at Antioch (Acts 13:24-25).
These quotations are all the more remarkable because they were made at considerable intervals of time the one from the other. Jesus used the words more than three decades after they had been spoken to Zechariah by the angel, announcing that Christ’s forerunner would be born. And St. Paul referred to the very same passage in the Book of Malachi some fourteen years after Jesus had spoken them.
St. John the Evangelist wrote of the Baptist: “The same came for a witness, that he might bear witness to the Light, that all might believe through him.
He was not the Light, but came that he might bear witness to the Light” (John 1:7, 8). George Mackinlay, commenting on this passage (p. 41), says that “The Light par excellence is the Sun, and the Morning Star, which reflects its light, is not the light itself, but is a witness of the coming great luminary”.
All four Evangelists record the Baptist as stating that the Christ would come after him: a statement in perfect harmony with the comparison of himself to the morning star (see e.g. Matthew 3:2; Mark 1:7; Luke 3:16 and John 1:15).
On three memorable occasions St. John the Baptist preceded and also testified to Jesus: viz. some months before Jesus’s birth (Luke 1:41, 44); shortly before Jesus’s public ministry (Matthew 3:11); and by his violent death at the hands of Herod, about a year before the Crucifixion (Matthew 14:10). Alluding to the Baptist’s martyrdom, Jesus said: “Even so shall the Son of Man also suffer” (Matthew 17:12, 13).
The figure of St. John the Baptist as the morning star is therefore a most appropriate one.
Object of Reference Always Present
George Mackinlay, following through Isaac Newton’s principle that the Jewish teachers frequently made figurative allusions to things that were actually present, suggested (p. 56) that “other allusions” unspecified by Newton, “such, for instance, as the comparison of the Baptist to the shining of the Morning Star”, must also indicate that the object of reference was present. “We may reasonably conclude”, he added, “that the planet was then to be seen in the early morning before sunrise”. Mackinlay realised that if Newton’s principle really worked in this instance, it would enable him to “find an indication of the dates of the ministries of Christ and of John, and consequently of the crucifixion”.
Making use of calculations made by expert astronomers at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Mackinlay, himself a professional observer, drew up a chart recording the periods when Venus appeared as the morning star for the period AD 23-36 – “a period which covers all possible limits for the beginning and ending of Christ’s ministry”.
{One will need to refer to Mackinlay’s own chart reproducing the astronomical data that he had received. I have already listed various chronological precautions that I believe must seriously affect dating methods, including Mackinlay’s}.
From Mackinlay’s diagram we learn that the morning star shines continuously on the average for about seven and a half lunar months at the end of each night, giving at least an hour’s notice of sunrise; but if we include the period when it is still visible, but gives shorter notice, the time of shining may be lengthened to about nine lunar months.
An eight years’ cycle containing five periods of the shining of the morning star - useful for practical purposes - exists between the apparent movements of the sun and Venus, correct to within a little over two days. The morning star is conventionally estimated (see previous comment on chronology) to have begun to shine at the vernal equinox, AD 25, and eight years afterwards, viz. in AD 33, it began again its period of shining at the same season of the year; and so, generally, at all years separated from each other by eight years, the shinings of the morning star were during the same months.
From the historical data available, it is conventionally agreed that the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ occurred between the years AD 28 – 33.
Of necessity, then, the three and a half years’ ministry (Mackinlay is of the view that Christ’s public ministry lasted “the longer period” of between three and four years, whilst he also discusses “the shorter period” of less than three years) would have begun in one of the years AD 24-29 (conventional dating).
We shall proceed now to examine in more detail those passages in the Gospels that refer to St. John the Baptist as the morning star.
(a) Beginning of the Baptist’s Ministry
At the very beginning of his ministry, the Baptist referred to the prophecy in Malachi 3:1, in which he himself is likened to the morning star, when he said: “He who comes after me is mightier than I” (Matthew 3:2, etc.).
Now, according to Isaac Newton’s principle of scriptural interpretation, that figures are taken from things actually present, the morning star would have been shining when the Baptist began his ministry; thus the witness in the sky, and the human messenger, each gave a prolonged heralding of the One who was to come.
If we refer to the Gospel of Matthew (3:8, 10 and 12), we find St. John the Baptist using three figures of speech at the beginning of his ministry:
1. “Now is the axe laid to the root of the trees” – presumably to mark the unfruitful trees to be cut down (see also Matthew 7:19).
2. “Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down …”.
3. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and He will clear his threshing floor, and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire”.
As Mackinlay has noted (p. 60), these three figures used by St. John all refer to the time of harvest, which would have taken place within the month of the Passover, “as the place where John began his ministry was the deep depression ‘round about Jordan’ (Luke 3:3), where the harvest is far earlier than on the Judaean hills”. Now, according to Mackinlay’s chart, the morning star was shining during the month after the Passover (April or May) only in the years AD 24, 25 and 27, in the period AD 24-29.
Hence we conclude that St. John the Baptist began his ministry in one of these three years.
(b) Beginning of Jesus’s Ministry
The Baptist again bore witness just before the beginning of Jesus Christ’s public ministry, when he proclaimed to the people: “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for He was before me’” (John 1:15); and he repeated that statement the next day (John 1:30) – again bearing out the simile of the morning star and the rising sun.
George Mackinlay, analysing what time of year this was, is certain that it must have been a good deal later than the beginning of St. John’s own ministry; “probably at least four or five months, to allow time for the Baptist to be known and to attract public attention”, he says (p. 61). It could not have been earlier than the latter part of August, he goes on; and “it must also have been long before the following Passover”, for several events in Jesus’s ministry “occurred before that date”. Mackinlay suggests that Jesus Christ most likely began his public ministry, “which we must date from the marriage in Cana of Galilee”, before November, “because there would have been leaves on the fig tree” when Nathanael came from under it (John 1:47, 48) (pp. 61-62).
Jesus approvingly called Nathanael “an Israelite indeed” (John 1:47). Unlike the hypocrites who loved to pray so as to be seen by men (Matthew 6:5), Nathanael had carefully hidden himself for quiet prayer under cover of his fig tree, and so he was greatly surprised that Jesus had seen him there.
In Scripture, the state of the vegetation of the fig tree is used to indicate the seasons of the year (see Matthew 24:32). We are informed that when the branch of the fig tree “becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near”.
From the Song of Songs (2:13), we read of the season when “the fig tree puts forth her green figs”; and the fading of the leaf of the fig tree is mentioned in Isaiah 34:4.
From this scriptural detail, relating to seasons, Mackinlay is able to narrow even further the choice of years (from AD 24-29) for the beginning of the two ministries.
“We must reject AD 24, for the morning star definitely was not shining between the months August to November of that year”, he writes (p. 63). This leaves us with only two options, viz. AD 25 and 27. At this stage Mackinlay makes a further assumption – previously he had asked the reader to assume for the time being that “the shorter period’ choice for the length of Jesus’s ministry be put aside – in relation to the date AD 27. Whilst admitting that AD 27 would fulfil the necessary conditions given above “if we suppose that Christ began His ministry within a month or six weeks from the time of John’s first appearance”, Mackinlay elected to put aside this date for reasons that would become apparent later on.
“He must increase, but I must decrease”.
The next reference to St. John the Baptist under the figure that we are considering is: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). According to F. Meyer, the Baptist “knew that he was not the Light, but sent to bear witness of it, not the Sun, but the Star that announces the dawn …” (Life and Light of Men, p. 42). St. John’s words may have foreshadowed his imprisonment as well, as Mackinlay thinks, for “they were uttered after the first Passover, which took place, according to the assumption which we have just made, in AD 26, but before the Baptist was cast into prison” (pp. 63-64). Consequently, he adds, we may assume that St. John the Baptist spoke these words about the beginning or the middle of April.
Meyer may not have been correct, however, in concluding his otherwise beautiful metaphor above by saying that “the Star”, which represents the Baptist, and which “announces the dawn”, also “wanes in the growing light” of the Sun.
The waning of a celestial body appears to be the scriptural symbolism for the destruction of wickedness.
The seeming annihilation of the stars caused by the rising of the sun, was an ancient figure of speech used to typify the triumph of good over the powers of darkness and evil.
George Mackinlay suggests that this may be the image intended by St. Paul when he spoke of “The lawless one, whom the Lord shall bring to nought by the manifestation (in Greek, “shining forth”) of His coming” (II Thessalonians 2:8); and he adds that the figure of the rising sun extinguishing the light of the stars “is associated with conflict, punishment and judgment, which certainly did not represent the relationship between Christ and His forerunner John” (p. 65).
Undoubtedly, rather, the impression that the Evangelist was intending to convey in this instance was one of the morning star decreasing in the sense of its non-appearance in the sky at the end of each night, as the increasing power of the sun’s heat and light became manifest. The planet Venus moves further and further away from its position as morning star, and increases its angular distance on the other side of the sun as the evening star. According to Mackinlay, in the year 26 AD Venus began to appear as the evening star “shortly before midsummer” (p. 64).
Interestingly, George Mackinlay’s chart indicates that it is the more probable explanation of the non-appearance of Venus in the sky at the end of the night as being the more appropriate figure to depict the decreasing of St. John the Baptist, which is fulfilled in the circumstance under consideration.
Imprisonment of St. John the Baptist
It is likely, as W. Sanday has noted (Outlines from the Life of Christ, p. 49), that the imprisonment of the Baptist took place after the Passover, and before the harvest of AD 26 (John 4:35); and soon after St. John had stated that “He must increase, but I must decrease”.
Sanday considered that the events surrounding the Passover (of John 2:13-4:45) did not occupy more than three or four weeks, and when Jesus arrived in Galilee (see Matthew 4:12) the impression of his public acts at Jerusalem was still fresh.
Sanday thought that his estimation of the date of the Baptist’s imprisonment was “somewhat strengthened by the fact that the Synoptic Gospels record no events after Christ’s Baptism and before John was delivered up, except the Temptation (Matthew 4:12; Mark 1:14 see also Luke 4:14); and because the Apostle Paul said that “as John was fulfilling his course, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not He. No, but after me One is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie’.” (Acts 13:25)”.
These words tend to place the end of the Baptist’s career rather early, because the message here referred to was proclaimed by him when he announced the Messiah, in autumn of AD 25 (John 1:26, 27).
Following George Mackinlay (p. 64), we therefore estimate that St. John the Baptist was imprisoned about the middle or end of April, AD 26, when, as is apparent from Mackinlay’s chart, the morning star, appropriately, was not shining.
“He was a burning and shining lamp”
The next reference to St. John the Baptist under this simile is a very striking one.
Jesus speaks of him as “a burning and shining lamp; and you were willing to rejoice for a season in his light”. (John 5:35). Mackinlay has suggested that, because the definite article is used twice in the Greek version of this passage, “it therefore seems to indicate some particular light” (p. 67). Though St. John was in prison, Jesus said of him at this time: “You sent to John, and both was and still is a witness to the truth” (John 5:33). Regarding the phrase “to rejoice for a season in his light”, Dr. Harpur tells of a custom in the East for travellers by night to sing songs at the rising of the morning star because it announces that the darkness and dangers of the night are coming to an end (as referred to by Mackinlay, p. 68).
In effect, then, Jesus was saying that the disciples of the Baptist were willing to rejoice in the light of the herald of day, which shines only by reflecting the light of the coming sun; but should rejoice now ever more since the sun itself had arisen – since “the Light of the World” had actually come.
This interpretation harmonises with Jesus’s statement recorded a few verses on (John 5:39) that “you search the Scriptures … which bear witness of Me”; the inference again being – now that I have come, you ought to receive Me.
All through this conversation, Mackinlay notes, “the subject is that of bearing witness” – by his own works; by the Father; by the Baptist; by the Scriptures and by Moses – “the whole pointing to the necessity of receiving the One to whom such abundant witness had been borne”.
The time when Jesus made this particular statement about the Scriptures bearing witness to Him was just after the un-named feast of John 5:1, and before the Passover of John 6:4. It is often assumed, George Mackinlay informs us, that this un-named feast was Passover – but some have opted for naming it the feast of Purim, fixed several centuries earlier by the command of Queen Esther (Esther 9:32); or even the feast of Weeks at the beginning of June (p. 69).
This does not affect our chronological scheme, however, for we learn from Mackinlay’s chart that the morning star was appropriately shining on each one of these feasts in AD 27.
The Crucifixion
But when we come to the last Passover, in the year AD 29, the herald of the dawn had just disappeared.
George Mackinlay shows (p. 81) that the disappearance of the planet Venus harmonises perfectly with the record of the complete isolation of Jesus Christ at his Crucifixion, given as follows:
(1)
The disappearance of the witness John by death (Matthew 14:10).
The forsaking of Our Lord by all his disciples (Matthew 26:56; Psalm 38:11; 49:20).
(3The absence of any record of a ministry of angels, as after the Temptation (Matthew 4:11).
The hiding of God’s face, when Christ uttered the cry: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Psalm 22:1).
(5) In nature, the Sun’ light failed (Luke 23:45).
(6) Being daytime, the Paschal Full Moon was, of course, below the horizon.
Most relevant to our subject also is the following chapter from George Mackinlay’s book:
Chapter Three: “A Star … out of Jacob”
Mackinlay commences by establishing “the greater probability” of the following two facts:
(a) That the Nativity of Jesus Christ was at least five months after the beginning of a period of shining of the morning star, and
(b) That the Nativity was at a Feast of Tabernacles (p. 140).
Firstly, we consider Mackinlay’s reason for believing that the Lord’s Nativity was:
(a) Five months after a period of shining.
To begin with, we must consider what reason there is for supposing that the morning star was shining at all when Jesus Christ was born. In Malachi 3:1, as we have seen already, St. John the Baptist is referred to under the figure of the morning star, as the forerunner of the Christ. But the morning star itself may be called “My messenger who shall prepare the way before Me”. It is not unusual for inanimate objects thus to be spoken of in Scripture, for instance in Psalm 88:38 we have “the faithful witness in the sky”, and in Psalm 148:3 the sun, moon and stars of light are exhorted to praise God.
Consequently, as George Mackinlay has explained it (p. 141), “we can reasonably suppose that the Morning Star was shining at the Nativity”.
Furthermore, he adds, if the morning star were the herald of the coming One, it is fitting to imagine that a somewhat prolonged notice should be given; for “it would be more dignified and stately for the one to precede the other by a considerable interval, than that both should come almost together”.
We shall find Mackinlay’s supposition of a prolonged heralding by the morning star borne out by the following inference. According to the principle of metaphors being taken from things present, we could infer that the morning star was actually shining when Jesus Christ (in Matthew 11:10), quoting Malachi 3:1, spoke of the Baptist as “My messenger … before My face”. Consistently following the same line of thought, we may reasonably infer that the morning star was also shining more than thirty years earlier when Zechariah quoted the same scriptural verse– i.e. Malachi 3:1 – at the circumcision of his son, John (Luke 1:76). Even had this appropriate passage not been quoted at the time, Mackinlay suggests (p. 142), “we might have inferred that the herald in the sky would harmoniously have been shining at the birth of the human herald”.
George Mackinlay further suggests from his inference that both Jesus and John were born when the morning star was shining, that “both must have been born during the same period of its shining”. [He shows this in his charts].
The Annunciation to Mary was made by the angel Gabriel in the sixth month after the announcement to Zechariah (Luke 1:13, 24, 26); and so it follows that the Baptist was born five to six months before Jesus. Since Mackinlay’s charts indicate that the periods of shining are separated from each other by intervals of time greater than six months, then both Jesus and his herald must have been born during the same period of shining.
Consequently Jesus Christ was born at least five months after the beginning of a period of shining of the morning star.
It will be noticed that some years in Mackinlay’s charts are omitted – this is due simply to lack of space – but no events recorded in the Gospels took place in these omitted years, nor were any of them enrolment (see below) or Sabbath years.
(b) At a Feast of Tabernacles
The Law, we are told by St. Paul, has “a shadow of the good things to come” (Hebrews 10:1). The various ordinances and feasts of the Old Testament, if properly understood, are found, according to George Mackinlay, “to refer to and foreshadow many events and doctrines of the New Testament” (p. 143). Again, A. Gordon had remarked that: “Many speak slightingly of the types, but they are as accurate as mathematics; they fix the sequence of events in redemption as rigidly as the order of sunrise and noontide is fixed in the heavens” (The Ministry of the Spirit, p. 28).
The deductions drawn from Gospel harmonies attest the truth of his statement.
We have already observed that the Sabbath Year began at the Feast of Tabernacles; the great feasts of Passover and Weeks following in due course. Jesus’s death took place at the Passover (Matthew 27:50), probably, George Mackinlay believes, “at the very hour when the paschal lambs were killed”. “Our Passover … has been sacrificed, even Christ” (1 Corinthians 5:7); the great Victim foretold during so many ages by the yearly shedding of blood at that feast.
The first Passover at the Exodus was held on the anniversary of the day when the promise –accompanied by sacrifice – was given to Abraham, that his seed would inherit the land of Canaan (Exodus 12:41; Genesis 15:8-18).
Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the day after the Sabbath after the Passover (John 20:1); the day on which the sheaf of first fruits, promise of the future harvest, was waved before God (Leviticus 23:10, 11).
Hence we are told by Saint Paul that as “Christ the first-fruits” (1 Corinthians 15:20. 23) rose, so those who believe in him will also rise afterwards. This day was the anniversary of Israel’s crossing through the “Sea of Reeds” (Exodus 12-14), and, as in the case of the Passover, it was also a date memorable in early history, being the day when the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4). The month Nisan, which had been the seventh month, became the first at the Exodus (Exodus 12:2). Thus Christ’s Resurrection was heralded by two most beautiful and fitting types, occurring almost – possibly exactly – on the same day of the year; by the renewed earth emerging from the waters of the Flood, and by the redeemed people emerging from the waters of the “Sea of Reeds”.
Mackinlay proceeded to search for any harmonies that there may be between the characteristics of this Feast of Tabernacles and the events recorded in connection with the Nativity. As we have noticed previously, he says (p. 146), there were two great characteristics of the Feast of Tabernacles: 1. Great joy and 2. Living in booths (tents).
1. Great joy.
The Israelites were told at this feast, “You shall rejoice before the Lord your God” (Leviticus 23:40), and “You shall rejoice in your feast … you shall be altogether joyful” (Deuteronomy 16:14, 15). King Solomon dedicated his Temple on a Feast of Tabernacles, and the people afterwards were sent away “joyful and glad of heart” (1 Kings 8:2, 66; 2 Chronicles 7:10).
There was no public rejoicing at the Nativity of Jesus Christ, however; on the contrary, as George Mackinlay notes, “shortly afterwards Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him” (Matthew 2:3).
But though He was rejected by the majority, we find the characteristic joy of Tabernacles reflected in the expectant and spiritually-minded souls.
Before the Nativity both the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth rejoiced in anticipation of it (Luke 1:38, 42, 44, 46, 47).
At the Nativity an angel appeared to the shepherds and brought them good tidings of great joy; and then “suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest’.” The shepherds then came to the infant Saviour and returned “glorifying and praising God” (Luke 2:9-20).
Forty days after the Nativity, at the Purification, Simeon, who had been waiting a long time for the consolation of Israel, and the venerable Anna who was a constant worshipper, joined in with their notes of praise and gladness (Luke 2:22-38).
And lastly the wise men from the East “rejoiced with exceeding great joy” when they saw the star indicating where the Saviour was, and they came into the house, saw the young Child with his Mother, and presented the gifts that they had brought (Matthew 2:9-11). This “Mother”, the Virgin Mary, is the ultimate “Star” pointing to Jesus Christ, her Son.
John Paul II’s encyclical, Redemptoris Mater (1987), is full of allusions to the Blessed Virgin Mary as ‘our fixed point’, or star ‘of reference’. To quote just this one example (# 3):
…. The fact that she “preceded” the coming of Christ is reflected every year in the liturgy of Advent. Therefore, if to that ancient historical expectation of the Saviour we compare these years which are bringing us closer to the end of the second Millennium after Christ and to the beginning of the third, it becomes fully comprehensible that in this present period we wish to turn in a special way to her, the one who in the “night” of the Advent expectation began to shine like a true “Morning Star” (Stella Matutina). For just as this star, together with the “dawn,” precedes the rising of the sun, so Mary from the time of her Immaculate Conception preceded the coming of the Saviour, the rising of the “Sun of Justice” in the history of the human race.
2. Living in booths.
According to George Mackinlay (pp. 147-148), the living in booths finds a parallel in the language of the Apostle John, when he wrote concerning the Birth of Jesus, “The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us” (John 1:14); and Our Lord himself used a somewhat similar figure when he spoke of his body thus “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I shall raise it up” (John 2:19) – words misunderstood by his enemies and afterwards quoted against him (Matthew 26:61; 27:40).
It was at the Feast of Tabernacles that the glory of God filled the Temple that King Solomon had prepared for Him (2 Chronicles 5:3, 13, 14), and it would seem to have been at the beginning or first day of the feast, the fifteenth day of the month. Consequently, in Mackinlay’s opinion (p. 148) “it would appear to be harmonious that the Advent of the Lord Jesus in the body divinely prepared for him (Hebrews 10:5) should also take place at the same feast and most suitably on the first day of its celebration”.
It will be noticed that the glory of God did not cover the tent of meeting when the Israelites were in the wilderness, and did not fill the tabernacle, at the Feast of Tabernacles. But it did so on the first day of the first month of the second year after the departure from Egypt (Exodus 40:17, 34, 35).
We must remember that there was no Feast of Tabernacles in the wilderness, nor was the Sabbath Year kept at this stage; but both of these ordinances were to be observed when the Israelites entered into the Promised Land (Exodus 34:22). No agricultural operations were carried out during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
As the Feast of Tabernacles inaugurated the Sabbath Year, Mackinlay judged (p. 149) that the glory of God filled the temple on the first day of the feast, “as that would be in harmony with what happened in the tabernacle in the wilderness when the glory of the Lord filled it on the first day of the only style of year then observed”.
A. Edersheim, writing about the Feast of Tabernacles, says (The Temple, note on p. 272): “It is remarkable how many allusions to this feast occur in the writings of the prophets, as if its types were the goal of all their desires”.
For further reading, see my articles:
The Magi and the Star that Stopped
(3) The Magi and the Star that Stopped
and:
Magi were not necessarily astronomers or astrologers
(3) Magi were not necessarily astronomers or astrologers
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