Seven Steps To Bethlehem

 

by Arthur Eedle  B.Sc.

 

INTRODUCTION

How the research project first began

 

            (It was August 1976, in a luxurious Hong Kong Government apartment high up on the rocky southern coast at Pokfulam, overlooking the sea and islands, with a flotilla of Chinese junks in the bay to the right, a large container ship being led into the harbour by a very small pilot boat directly in front of the windows, and the high-rise blocks of Wah Fu away to the left.)

 

            “Shall we sit on the veranda, Alan?” I said to my old friend.

 

            “Why not? It’s a very still evening.  -  -  - My word, look at that sunset.”

 

            “Marvellous, isn’t it? We’ve had several since being here. Last time, about a month ago, I took some shots and the slides came out a treat,” I said.

 

            Our Amah (house-girl) served us with a pot of coffee, whilst our ladies chatted in the lounge. We’d enjoyed a special dinner, and it was good to sit and relax in the evening twilight. It was hot and very humid, but we’d learned to cope with it - well, just about!  And the mosquitoes weren’t nearly so numerous at this height. Our neighbours were enjoying themselves in their swimming pool down below.

 

            “How long before you go on leave, Arthur?”

 

            “Next April. I’ll be glad of a respite from the humidity.”

 

            “Thinking of returning for another tour of duty?”

 

            “It’s all in the air just now. Too many imponderables. I think I’ll wait until it’s nearer the time. There’s no hurry.”

 

            We sat in silence for a while, enjoying the scene, with the ever-darkening reds in the western sky.

 

            “You still do quite a lot of private study and research, don’t you?”

 

            “Yes,” I answered, “and recently it’s been a mixture of calendars, astronomy, and Biblical study.”

 

            “I’m intrigued!  Tell me more.”

 

            “It was triggered off by a recent article in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society  -  .”

 

            “You’re a Fellow, I believe?”

 

            “Yes, have been since 1957. Much of what they print goes over my head, but now and again I find something of particular interest. As I was saying, there was this article, about the Star of Bethlehem, you know, an attempt to determine what it could have been.”

 

            Alan laughed.

 

            “You find that amusing?”

 

            “Sorry, old man. No offence meant. It’s just that I’ve always had a secret admiration for the work you’ve done in the past. But this seems a bit bizarre, and perhaps a waste of your time and energy.”

 

            “How come?  You don’t disbelieve in the Star, do you?” I protested.

 

            “I don’t know what to make of it.  -  -  Now don’t take me wrong. I’m all for the Bethlehem story, and I love it every Christmas, but there are elements in that tale which are hardly credible, wouldn’t you say?”

 

            “Difficult to unscramble, but not necessarily incredible. So what’s your problem?” I asked.

 

            “Well, before I answer that, tell me, are you really doing a bit of research on the subject?”  Alan was becoming more serious.

 

            “I’ve hardly started. Furthermore, facilities are rather limited here. I used to frequent the R.A.S. library at Burlington House in Piccadilly.  They had everything there an astronomer might want, and it was easy to lay my hands on the stuff I needed, but here it’s like a wilderness by comparison. London’s where I got most of the material for The Other Star which if you remember, I published in 1966.”

 

            “Yes, and that’s what you ought to be doing again, if you don’t mind me saying. - -Most interesting theory. - - I really enjoyed reading it. I thought it was likely to shake up the old fuddy-duddies who can’t get away from their uniformitarian concepts. Nothing like a few good explosions, you know! All those craters in North America - never seen anything else like it in print.”

 

            “Yes, I know what you mean. I spent a good few years working on that, but this Bethlehem Star project is getting under my skin. The more I think about it, the more intrigued I become.  -  -  -  But spill the beans  -  what makes it a Cinderella to you?”

 

            “Simply because it’s a non-starter. You’ll just be wasting your time, Arthur. I’ve had a go at it myself  -  good time ago now  -  and found too many anomalies in the Gospel stories to get a fix on anything.”

 

            “But this is important to me. Too many people are laughing at the birth of Christ. Goodness knows how many clerics have thrown out the baby with the bathwater  -  I’m sorry, I’ve just realised what I’ve said, no blasphemy meant.”

 

            Alan laughed, spluttering coffee and choking at the unintended joke.

 

            “Yes, I know what you mean,” he said, “but I think we’ll just have to enjoy the Christmas story and not look too deeply into the folklore mixed up with it.”

 

            “Folklore!” I exploded. “Alan, normally I have great respect for you. You’re a fully-fledged lecturer in physics at the Hong Kong University, and your mind is a lot keener than mine, but I’m perplexed to find your present attitude on this.”

 

            “O.K., I’ll be more serious.”  He put his coffee on the table and cleared his throat. “Now it goes something like this  -  stars don’t move along and come to rest over stables, whether generically they are true stars, comets, planets, super-novæ, meteors, or anything else that flies around up there. That’s the first thing. But if you’re out to prove the chronology of Christ’s birth  -  .”

 

            “That was my intention,” I interrupted.

 

            “Right, then there are other factors that don’t add up - .”

 

            “Such as?”

 

            “Jesus’ birth couldn’t have been later than B.C.4, because Herod died in that year. You’ll find all the textbooks are agreed on that date. But the census Luke mentions was in A.D.6, and though he says there was an earlier one, history records no governorship to Quirinius before A.D.6.  Furthermore, the account of the three wise men is an anachronism, and doesn’t fit the story in respect of Joseph’s travels. One says he went back to Nazareth, the other to Egypt. Try as you may, you’ll find yourself in a fix.”

 

            Alan folded his arms above his head, sat back in his chair and awaited my reply.

 

            “But I’m quite aware of those apparent contradictions, and that’s what makes it fascinating. It’s a brainteaser, Alan, and I’d love the exercise! You know what I’m like with puzzles of this sort. I can’t leave them alone until I’ve satisfied my mind.”

 

            “O.K., but you’ll never make heads or tails of it. Mind you, if you want to attack it just for the sheer hell of the game, then that’s fine by me. Tell you what  -  give yourself a few months - yes, what about next April? That’s a splendid idea, - let’s have a wager on it. If you come up with anything positive by then, we’ll stand you a farewell dinner at the Peak Tower Restaurant.”

 

            “And if I don’t, then I suppose the dinner’s on me?”

 

            We both laughed, and left it at that. Alan had one last suggestion.

 

“Tell you what, old man, I think I might be able to help you out. I’ll get you a pass so that you can use the University Library. They’ve a good selection of stuff up there. You can show your ticket and use the car parking facilities, then take the lift up to the library. There are plenty of photocopying machines around the place.”

 

            “Thanks. That’s good of you. I’ll ransack the place to see if I can find anything useful. I must you know. I’m looking forward to that dinner!”

 

            And so the conversation ended as we turned to other things, and eventually joined the ladies in the lounge.

 

            That was the beginning of a hunt that went on for many years. The following April I told Alan I’d made some small progress, showing him that there might be a way through the maze of perplexities. He wasn’t very convinced, but treated us to our farewell dinner just the same!

 

            We never returned to Hong Kong. Instead Rosalind and I set up as Guest House Proprietors in Wiltshire, and found that we needed to apply ourselves to a lot of hard physical work and long hours. We stuck at this for nearly four years, and then had to sell up due to the recession. That’s when we moved to Lincolnshire, in the flat farming lands, with a house surrounded by arable and grazing land. The contrast with the Guest House, and especially Hong Kong, was most marked.

 

            But all through those years I never lost sight of my task, and whenever I had the chance I would get the study books out again, and do a little more digging. One book was especially valuable, and this was found in the Hong Kong University Library, thanks to Alan. It was “Elements of the Jewish and Muhammadan Calendars” by Sherrard Beaumont Burnaby (1901).  Even the few pages I’d photocopied set me to work, and back in England I was able to obtain a copy once again and re-read it.

 

            And so, using Burnaby’s book, by 1988 I had found some delightful facts by sheer hard work, programming a computer to print out the Hebrew Calendar for the years B.C.37 to A.D.75, this task being a real trial of my abilities, inasmuch as I had previously had no tuition in computing. And then there was a mountain of reading to do, and some retranslating of the Greek in the Gospels (for which I am forever grateful to my old school, where Greek and Latin were basic subjects in the curriculum).

 

            The results were committed to print, and privately published in fourteen parts, and sent out in 1988 to some friends and acquaintances on our mailing list, free of charge.

 

            Now it is 2002. Many more years have gone by, and it’s time to reassess the material in the light of further developments, and present the story again, this time I hope in a more readable fashion than before. I feel the urgency to do this, perhaps for my own sake, to complete a task and feel the satisfaction of having (eventually!) reached a goal, even though, sadly, I was never able to communicate the result to Alan due to his early demise.

 

            One final word. In the Old Testament (1 Chronicles 12:32) it is written that the men of Issachar “had the wisdom of understanding to know the times, to know what Israel ought to do.”  My hope is that I shall have emulated the spirit of the “men of Issachar”, and not be like those whom Jesus reproached saying, “Hypocrites! You can discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.” (Matthew 16:3) I believe it is equally important to discern the times of Messiah’s first coming as it is to be ready for His second coming.

                                                            Arthur Eedle

 

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                      AUTHOR’S ADDITIONAL NOTE

 

            I originally published “Seven Steps to Bethlehem” privately as part of “The Prophetic Telegraph”, occasional papers on selected theological and scientific topics sent out to friends and acquaintances. The 14 parts came out progressively over a period of two years as the material was covered. As a result it was not in a format suitable for publishing as a book.

 

            This presentation comes as a result of completely re-writing that work, together with a considerable addition of material gathered in more recent years.

 

            The title of the book can best be explained in the following way. On assessing all the available material, it soon became apparent that there were SEVEN distinct areas of research that needed to be covered to reach the goal, namely, the date and time of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. The seven areas were as follows:-

 

            Step 1.  The darkness over the land at the crucifixion.

            Step 2.  Luke’s mention of the 15th year of Tiberius Cæsar.

            Step 3.  The governorships of Quirinius.

            Step 4.  Herod’s dates, and the Lunar Eclipse of Josephus.

            Step 5.  The Climate of the Judæan Hills.

            Step 6.  Zachariah and the Course of Abijah.

            Step 7.  The Wise Men and the Star.

 

            Each one of these “Steps” will be presented as a Part in the writing. Some Parts will be longer than others, depending on the amount of material needing to be covered to reach the seven conclusions.

 

Although I believe I have found a satisfactory answer to the vexed questions surrounding this chronological study, it will at least be of some interest and perhaps fascination to know about the great variety of suggestions put forward by other workers in this field. This information has been amassed by Dr. Jerry Vardman and Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi and presented in their book, “Chronos, Kairos, Christos”, (published by Eisenbrauns, 1989). The state of confusion unearthed by the authors is prodigious. There are theories that range from B.C.12 to B.C.3 for the birth of Christ, and from A.D.26 to A.D.36 for the Crucifixion, all presented exactly as the investigators published.

 

            These authors were not the first to gather such information together. The task had been performed way back in 1933 by U. Holzmeister, and presented in his book entitled “Chronologia Vitæ Christi”. In his survey he mentioned the names of no less than 58 modern authors (of his day) and of these, 33 selected nativity dates between B.C.7 and B.C.5. But of the 42 ancient opinions listed, only one chose a date before B.C 4, the supposed time of death of Herod the Great.

 

            It is against this background that I now present my own findings, and hope that the simplicity of the logic will attract attention and cause scholars to re-assess their position. I am particularly interested in giving the New Testament writers the accolade of genuineness they deserve, rather than treating them (as sadly, some scholars do) simpletons, charlatans, or religious zealots with dubious agendas.

 

                                                                                    Arthur Eedle, November 2002