Star of Bethlehem

Kidger begins with the stories of early Christians, comparing Matthew's tale of the Star and the three Magi who followed it to Bethlehem with lesser-known accounts excluded from the Bible. Crucially, Kidger follows the latest biblical scholarship in placing Christ's birth between 7 and 5 B.C., which leads him to reject various phenomena that other scientists have proposed as the Star. In clear, colorful prose, he then leads us through the arguments for and against the remaining astronomical candidates. Could the Star have been Venus? What about a meteor or a rare type of meteor shower? Could it have been Halley's Comet, as featured in Giotto's famous painting of the Nativity? Or, as Kidger suspects, was the Star a combination of events--a nova recorded in ancient Chinese and Korean manuscripts preceded by a series of other events, including an unusual triple conjunction of planets?

Mark Kidger is a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain, one of the world's leading astronomical observatories. He specializes in the astrophysics of quasars and comets, writes monthly columns for the popular Spanish astronomy magazines Tribuna de Astronomia and Universo and for the British magazine The Astronomer. He contributes articles, primarily on comets and meteors, to a variety of other magazines in Spain and Britain, appears regularly on Spanish television and radio, and on the BBC World Service for Latin America.

Książka "Star of Bethlehem"
M. Kidger; Mark Kidger