Word: magie
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...make events even more miraculous. Many of the inventions of art and literature are so ingrained that people regard them as part of Holy Writ. The beasts that appear at the manger, for instance, are not mentioned in the Bible. Neither is the number of the Magi. The names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar and the legend that Balthasar was black were popularized in the 8th century. Partly to make it easier for Catholics to believe in Mary's lifelong virginity, early church authors developed the notion that Joseph was an older man, presumably a widower, when he married...
What everyone is seeing is a replica of the changing sky over Bethlehem 2,000 years ago from Christmas to Twelfth Night (Jan. 6), when the Magi finally reached Bethlehem. In the east, the radiant star the Magi followed hovers over the stable of an inn, part of a panoramic view of the biblical country side that circles the auditorium...
...distant voice booms a question. What kind of star could the Magi have followed? Was it a comet? An exploding meteorite? A stella nova? Or perhaps the conjunction in the winter sky of three luminous planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars? Every 800 years they come so close together that they might appear to be some giant star in the dusk. The voice hints at a possible answer to the mystery of what lured the Magi on by explaining that just such a meeting occurred in the sky over the Holy Land in the early spring of the year...
...slight complication, however. That star would not have been visible to most people in the Holy Land. For at that time of year, astronomers also know, the three planets were above the horizon only during the day, when they were invisible to the naked eye. Still, the Magi might have known about the daytime confluence. Most courts, even then, had astronomers perfectly capable of plotting the course of such bright and dramatic planets through the night sky and noting where their paths would cross during the day. Such a celestial coming together would likely be regarded as a portent...
Some astronomers and biblical scholars speculate that the first conjunction may have been the signal that started the Magi on their long trek to Israel; the second, the beacon that guided them on their journey. Their reasoning seems to accommodate the timetable of the Christmas story, for in December the two planets came together for a third time, as if on cue, to show the final way to Bethlehem...