I am a scientist and I love seeing how God is behind every new discovery. His timing is always perfect. While we were in Israel in the year 2000, we saw what they called “the Jesus boat”, which was a fishing boat that dated from the time that Jesus walked the earth. It was found on the shore of the Sea of Galilee a few years earlier, and had been meticulously conserved and preserved. To me, the most interesting aspect of it was that if it had been found many years earlier, the technology to properly preserve it would not have existed. It was found in God’s time.
In Luke’s narrative of the birth of Jesus we are told “ And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.”(Luke 2:6). Paul tells us in Ephesians that God was “ making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:9-10 God had a plan and an exact time for Jesus to come to earth from the beginning of time.
I saw some amazing scientific evidence for this specificity of time in the documentary The Star of Bethlehem. (www.bethlehemstar.net) I had learned at Science Camp this summer how the Bible shows the God created and named each star. ” Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing” Isaiah 40:26. He knows each star and placed it precisely in the heavens. And many times we are told in the Bible that there are signs in the heavens. Psalm 19 even says “The heavens declare the glory of God”- they make a statement about His glory.
And what could be more glorious than revealing the plan for the redemption of God’s people. “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.'” Luke 2:1-2. The stars proclaimed His birth to the wise men. Some of the earliest Scientists were those who studied the stars. There are records of observations of the heavens going back thousands of years. Modern science has long sought to explain what this star that imparted the information about the birth of Jesus was, with no decisive results. But now, in the time when computers can swiftly and accurately turn the night sky backwards for thousands of years, there seems to be a scientifically defensible theory about what the star was, and why it brought the wise men from the east to worship Jesus.
It begins with human error. Not going back as far as the garden this time, but back to 1544, when some anonymous scribe made an error in copying, and changed the date of Herod’s death in an ancient history book by Flavius Josephus. Using Biblical recording of Herod ordering the slaughter of the boys under two, and the return of Jesus from Egypt after Herod’s death caused most scholars to place Jesus Birth date in 4 or 5 BC. But using the date for Herod’s death that is consistent in all copies of Josephus manuscripts before 1544, the year of Christ’s birth becomes 2 or 3 BC. And looking at the sky in those years shows some amazing things.
In fact, the skies show conjunctions of stars and planets appearing in constellations that fulfill many prophecies from the Bible, not just at the time of Jesus birth, but also at His death on the cross. And as the stars and planets were placed and named by God, it seems that he told not only the Christmas Story, but the entire story of the redemption of mankind for all to hear, by writing it in the heavens before he even created man. Just another reminder of how great, eternal and powerful our God is!
Think on these things as you celebrate His birth!
soli deo gloria,
Diane