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The Question
(Submitted December 17, 1996)
A prophetic astronomical picture has recently intrigued me. Revelation
12:1,2,3 says a great sign will appear in the heavens and then projects the
following alignment of the stars, sun and moon in the heavens followed by
what sounds like a massive comet. Is there any way of determining what the
possible dates associated with the following description might occur? It
could have taken place around the time of the birth of Christ or could be in
the near future (next several decades).
A woman (aren't there several star configurations or galaxies which
would fit this description?) clothed with the Sun (I assume that means that
the sun will be in the midst of this "woman" star configuration) and the moon
under her feet (I assume the moon will be at the bottom of the star
configuration and on her head a crown of 12 stars (Are there any 12 star
groupings?).
Is there anyone in your organization who might know about this or be
willing to research it? Any assistance which you can give would be greatly
appreciated.
Thank you
The Answer
No, this is not an area of expertise or professional interest of
people working in our lab. Rather, the HEASARC is an organization
within NASA of professional high-energy astronomers who utilize
satellite data to examine a wide range of phenomena exhibited by
objects in the Universe such as pulsars, supernovae, and active
galaxies. While it is not NASA's role to help interpret Biblical
passages, we can help you with the astronomy and a historical perspective.
For assistance, we asked Dr. Brad Schaefer who used to work in our lab
(but is now at Yale), and has done work in historical astronomy. He
contributed what follows.
The primary trouble with trying to identify any particular event
(past, present, or future) described in a text is to understand what
the text is describing. This is the primary problem with scholarly
research into medieval and ancient annals in search of old astronomical
records of utility for modern science. Historically, this has also
proven the biggest uncertainty for identifications of the Star of Bethlehem.
Modern scholars have tried to identify it as a triple conjunction of Jupiter
and Saturn, a nova, a comet, a massing of three planets in Pisces, an
occultation of Jupiter by Venus, a supernova, and the stationary point of
Jupiter. With such a wide array of attested astronomical phenomena from
the time 10BC to 1AD, we see that the texts cannot be of reasonable
utility to uniquely identify the event. Many events written about by
ancient and medieval chroniclers cannot now be identified for the same
reason. The trouble is that many events can be fitted into the sketchy
information provided, so that no certainty or even likelihood is
possible.
With regard to great sign in the heavens you referred to, here
the problem is that the sky is always showing some magnificent and
beautiful display. Statistical studies show that the skies give a
spectacular spectacle of order once a year. In recent years, we have
had beautiful solar eclipse across America, Comet Hyakutake's awesome
tail, a fantastically colored lunar eclipse, and some brilliant
sky-filling aurorae. In the next few years, astronomers have predicted
(for decades in most cases) a Christmas Day solar eclipse across North
America (2000), fantastic Leonid meteor storms in 1998 and 1999, a rare
transit of Venus across the face of our Sun, a bright comet this year,
and a massing of five planets in early 2000. But these series of
spectacles is the ordinary condition of the sky. So with a description
only promising a great sign in the sky, there is no way to identify any
event.
You specifically asked about a woman in the sky and 12 star
groupings associated with the Sun. A major problem here is that figures
in the sky and groupings of stars change rapidly in time and are widely
different from culture-to-culture. Studies of even medieval sky maps
shows no uniformity in either constellation identification or star
counts - despite being a somewhat uniform cultural environment. This by
itself would render any interpretation dubious.
Historically, the questions you have raised have been raised
many times over the centuries. Millenialistic fervor has been
widespread in the years ~320, 1000, 1254, 1543, and 1843. The
motivation in each case has been the same text, but the application to
the sky has always been greatly different. Thus, history teaches us
that the same text yields many disparate interpretations that gain
adherents, and all of which have not resulted in consummation of the
predictions.
We hope you find this information useful.
James Lochner
for Imagine the Universe!
(and with thanks to Brad Schaefer)
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