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	Star of Bethlehem has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result November 28, 2006 Good article nominee Listed June 8, 2008 Featured article candidate Not promoted July 3, 2009 Good article reassessment Kept
Current status: Good article

The Magi were astronomers/ astrologers - they were the scholars/wise men of their day. They were scientists and mathematicians. 73.85.201.89 ( talk) 17:00, 30 December 2019 (UTC) reply

I think there is an element of Zoroastrianism in the reference to the Magi. Admittedly, a conjecture, but perhaps not a wild conjecture. Not only were they supposed to come from the East, but they are often described as garbed in silk as Persians and Indians would have been. Astrology places a major role in Eastern faiths like Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, and while Zoroastrianism is now wiped out of Iran and only exists in India, in the days of Jesus, it flourished in the Persia area.

(I am also reminded of a story by NASA about GPS. Bear with me, it is related. NASA was asked about how it invented GPS, and they humbly admitted that it was a Naval officer, not NASA who invented the idea for it. NASA had called upon the Navy to help locate a lost satellite. They needed naval ships to position themselves at known coordinates and triangulate the signal ping of the satellite. The many ships can pinpoint the exact location of the satellite. They succeeded, and found the exact location of NASA's lost satellite. A naval admiral then inquired, can NASA do it the other way around? Instead of many ships being used to find one lost satellite, can many satellites be used to find one lost ship? Ergo was the idea for GPS birthed.)

Now how is this relevant? Eastern astrologers primarily build a natal chart, also called a star-chart, based on the location, date, and time of a birth. (This differs from Western astrologers who rely on just the Sun sign derived from the month of birth, ignoring location and time). From the natal chart, Eastern astrologers may predict the type of person and their life unfolding. However, some savvy astrologers may wish to do the reverse: first start with the type of person and life unfolding they wish for, and then back-calculate their star-chart to find the location and time of their birth, past, present, or future. Whether or not someone believes in astrology or not, the calculation of a star-chart or the back-calculation of it, is purely arithmetical. This may be one explanation for the Magi "following a star", the tale losing the original astrological reference of following a star-chart. This may also partially explain why Jesus wished to travel to the East in his unknown years. There is a book called Jesus in India to delve into that theory, which is likely further walking afield into conjecture than relating the biblical Magi to star-charts. There is, unfortunately, not much mention on Wikipedia on how star-charts are mathematically calculated based on location, date, and time. However, there are external sites with software to calculate it, using vedic astrology. [1]. Thoreaulylazy ( talk) 10:20, 4 December 2020 (UTC) reply

This differs from Western astrologers who rely on just the Sun sign derived from the month of birth, ignoring location and time.

• Mate, you have no idea of what you're talking about. You seem to think that the crap you can find in women's magazines is the same thing as serious astrology. It's not. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:33, 23 December 2021 (UTC) reply

There is one star known for navigation. One star that does not move as the others in an east to west arc. This is Polaris. 72.139.200.94 ( talk) 22:44, 5 December 2022 (UTC) reply

The Biblical account mentions shepherds tending their flocks outside - which makes a December date improbable - i.e., June would be much more appropriate. [A fair number of writers have mentioned this point]. -- DLMcN ( talk) 18:58, 23 December 2023 (UTC) reply

The shepherds are not mentioned in Matthew (only in Luke). Therefore they likely have not been there at the same time as the wise men. According to Matthew, Herod had all children under the age of two killed. However, this only makes sense if Jesus is no longer a newborn. The wise men therefore only came to Bethlehem some time later. And this could well have taken place in winter. 25 December would then not be the actual date of birth, but the time when Jesus was honoured as king for the first time. CHrist1291 ( talk) 09:16, 25 December 2023 (UTC) reply

The late Fr. Raymond E. Brown is cited in the article as the author of some source publications. - knoodelhed ( talk) 04:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC) reply