Star of Bethlehem, Star of Messiah: A Book Review

Star of Bethlehem, Star of Messiah
Robert S. McIvor, 1998, 207 pages, ISBN 0 9683998-0-0, paperback $12.95, Overland Press, Canada

Only a few sentences in Matthew in the New Testament describe the fulfillment of an early prediction by Balaam that a star would mark the birth of Christ. Matthews' account, the only one in the Bible, was written some seventy years after the birth of Christ, but research into the authenticity of the story and the identity of the Christmas star have proliferated. McIvor's treatise reviews many previous documents and concludes that a supernova of 4 B.C. is the most likely candidate.

At different times the Christmas star has been associated with the conjunction of planets or with objects classified as either comets or novae in 5 or 4 B.C. Chinese or Korean sources (Ho Peng Yoke, 1962). The early records did not clearly differentiate between comets and novae; those called comets but which showed no motion over an appreciable time span are assumed to be novae. Considering the extreme brightness of the Chr.shtmlas star, brighter than Venus at its brightest (about -4 apparent visual magnitude), it is supposed that the star must have been a supernova. If so, one would expect to find a pulsar close to the assumed position of the observed object. (Positions in the early records were not precisely measured.)

From McIvor's search of the literature he concludes that the star had first been observed by the Magi in the East in 4 B.C. and again in 2 B.C. when they "followed the star" in their trek from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, where they succeeded in finding the Virgin Mary with her just born child.

No Western records seem to be available of bright novae observed at approximately the time of the birth of Christ. However, Ho Peng Yoke in his catalogue of "Ancient and Mediaeval Observations of Comets and Novae in Chinese Sources" lists two objects between 10 B.C. and A.D. 13, namely those in 5 and 4 B.C. in the Chinese constellations Chhien-Niu and Ho-Ku, respectively. These small configurations correspond to regions in Capricorn including beta and xi Caprircorni, and in Aquila including alpha (Altair), gamma, and phi Aquilae. (Figure 1.) Manchester and Taylor (1981) in their "Observed and Derived Parameters for 330 Pulsars" do not list any pulsar close to either of these Chinese constellations. On Figure 1 from Ho Peng Yoke I added circles to show the locations of the pulsars closest to these configurations taken from the positions given by Manchester and Taylor. The supernova in the Chinese constellation Ho-Ku in Aquila is supposed to have occurred near Altair, whereas the pulsar PSR 1913+16, now considered the remnant of the Chr.shtmlas star, is about 12° northwest of Altair near the border of Sagitta in the Chinese constellation Tso-Chhi.

In 1976, Smarr and Blandford discovered that pulsar 1913+16 at 19h13m12s, +16°01'08" is a double pulsar. As pulsars are recognized as the remnants of the eruption of supernovae, McIvor concluded that this was the remnant of the supernova the Magi had first observed in 4 B.C. and, after their journey to Jerusalem, again observed in 2 B.C. when they were on their way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. McIvor hence inferred that the 4 B.C. object was one component of the binary pulsar, the 2 B.C. object the other component. This is a beautiful conclusion, especially in view of the fact that it had been difficult to accept previous inferences that the two supernovae apparitions of 4 and 2 B.C. could correspond to the same object, as no duration of a supernova burst has ever been found to last more than a few months within about 4 magnitudes of maximum, and as no recurrent nova has ever been known to flare again after an interval as short as two years. (Most recurrent novae have flared in intervals from about eighteen to thirty years.)

As with all previously assumed identifications of the Chr.shtmlas star, there remains an uncertainty. Could the Chinese recorded position for the nova of 4 B.C. be off by some 12°, in Ho-Ku instead of Tso-Chhi? If so, then the identification of the 4 B.C. object with PSR 1913+16 can be accepted as correct.

References

Ho Peng Yoke. 1962, Vistas in Ast. 5, 127-225.
Manchester, R.N., and Taylor, J. H. 1981, Astron. J. 86, 1953-1973.
Smarr, L.L., and Blandford, R. 1976, Astrophys. J. 207, 574-588

Table of contents

Next article