Hello,

I think you may take an interest in this. Based on my studies in astrology I have evidence that 6 BC is correct. It seems likely that Jesus would be born after the Fall Equinox (September 21), 5 BC, and before January 5 or 6th, 5 BC for the historical birth of Jesus- according to paleo-astronomy. If you download a program called Stellarium, which is free, and put in these dates, you'll see that the star of Bethlehem was likely a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn.

A conjunction like this would have been quite bright, but also hovering in Pisces, and moving retrograde; this would have been an alarm call to ancient astrologers. The conjunction between the planets would have been so bright, that Jupiter would have literally bent the light of Saturn around it- producing a very bright star in the sky. After the Spring Equinox in 6 BCE, in the early morning Jupiter and Saturn would rise out of the SouthEast sprinting west across the Arabian sky before the sun washed it out it would get midsky. Each morning, the planets get closer together- appearing as a star to us. Each week they would rise 30 minutes earlier. The planets, Jupiter and Saturn, or the "Star of Bethlehem" as I hypothesize, were actually

By May 24, 25th,26th- 6 BC we have a first maximum level conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn. All summer these two planets, stars from our point of view, are incredibly close together- so close that they would have looked like giant star under many conditions. They hover above the Bethlehem sky at sunset all summer, but as the evening progresses the 'Star of Bethlehem' would move Southwest and set before dawn, and on October 1st 6 BC, there is a second maximum conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. In October, they set at dawn by 5 am in the morning.

November 1 BC , the planets are ever so slightly apart, moving in retrograde motion, though again, from Earth, it would have looked like one big star. Then again on December 1, 6 BC, Jupiter and Saturn reach their third maximum conjunction in a period not much more than 6 months. They can only be seen in late December 6 BC shortly after the sun sets, and then afterwards they set around midnight. During this period, because of their position on the horizon, they also would have appeared as fused together, hovering above a place in the distant west.

In astrological terms this would have prompted the Magi, or any other ancient astronomer worth their salt, to travel to find the one for whom the cosmos was shaped. The star would have guided them west for the whole duration, but it would not have been entirely sufficient to pin point Bethlehem until the end, when in the months between October and December, the conjunction would have appeared to be completely stable, bright, and lingering in the western sky after sunset.

But please check this theory out for yourself with the free program, Stellarium, that I have nothing to do with- I'm not advertising it. You could use Celestia as well, but its harder to see how people in Bethlehem would have seen it with that program. I've used a few astrological terms here, like retrograde motion and so on, but the reason this happened is because Jupiter and Saturn really did come closer to each other as they orbited the sun, but since we're also orbiting the sun, and at the faster rate, it was our motion that created the two conjunctions on either side of the date of around October 1, rather than Jupiter and Saturn doing anything in particular. So again, the dates of the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn are around May 25, Oct 1, and December 1, 6 BCE- the planets do start to move out of alignment by about January 5 or 6th- still within Eastern Orthodox tradition if you will, but then in 5 BC. Thanks for reading and may god bless.- jair