The Great Christ Comet (86 page)

42
 Rev. 12:1's description enables us to identify the mother as Virgo and see how she is being imagined against the backdrop of the stars, to appreciate that the drama of vv. 1–5 is one that concerns her exaltation, and to nail down the time of the astronomical events.

43
 It is worth remembering that the comet's appearance (with respect to both brightness and form) would have been essentially the same on the evening of September 14. Therefore, whether the Feast of Trumpets began on the 14th or 15th of September, a cometary trumpet could have been present to mark the occasion.

44
 See George F. Chambers,
The Story of the Comets
(London: Clarendon, 1909), 8; Richard Schmude,
Comets and How to Observe Them
(New York: Springer, 2010), 41.

45
 According to our orbit, about 2 hours after sunset in Babylon.

46
 According to our orbit, 1½ hours before dawn in Jerusalem and 53 minutes before dawn in Babylon.

47
 “The Average Weather in September for Iraq,”
http://
weatherspark
.com
/averages
/31352
/9/Iraq
-Babil
(accessed May 13, 2014).

48
 “Al Hillah: Full Year Climatology,”
http://
www
.nrlmry
.navy
.mil
/CLIMATOLOGY
/pages
/arabian
_sea
_region
/iraq
/pdf
/alhillah
_iraq.pdf
(last modified April 24, 2013).

49
 Assuming n=4.

50
 Because ancient conceptualizations of Virgo in the Greco-Roman and Near Eastern worlds were similar, observers in each of these places were capable of regarding the cometary coma as playing the part of a baby in Virgo's womb. It should also be remembered that the coma, as it played the role of a growing fetus in Virgo, was strongly shaping the precise way observers imagined the constellation figure relative to the fixed stars over the course of the celestial drama.

51
 For a very helpful and interesting overview of ancient Babylonian and Jewish ideas about conception, pregnancy, and delivery, see Marten Stol,
Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean Setting
(Groningen: Styx, 2000), 1–26, 109–145.

52
 At the same time, recall Isa. 42:6; 49:6; and 60:1–3.

53
 It is also interesting that the palm branch, which was widely associated with Virgo (she held one in her right hand), was a prominent feature of the Feast of Tabernacles. Worshipers were to carry palm branches in their right hands. Strikingly, during the Triumphal Entry the people used palm branches to welcome Jesus into the city, even as they blessed the Messiah as their Savior (John 12:12–13; Matt. 21:8–9).

54
 According to our orbit, the nucleus was located midway between
α
(Spica) and
θ
Virginis on September 30–October 1, 6 BC, after which it moved up closer to
θ
Virginis, being within 2 degrees of it from October 2 to 12.

55
 Gary W. Kronk comments: “On the 30th, the comet would have been visible in morning twilight shortly before sunrise and would have been visible throughout the day, setting about an hour before the sun. There would have been little change by the 3rd” (personal email message to the author, September 26, 2012).

56
 On the 373–372 BC comet, see Ephorus as cited by Diodorus Siculus 15.50.2–3.

57
 October 6 was either Tishri 21, the last of the seven main days of the Feast of Tabernacles, or Tishri 22, the eighth day.

58
 Since the nucleus is probably to be located at the focal point of the ellipsis (or parabola) (Andreas Kammerer, personal email message to the author, November 5, 2012), approximately 10% of the coma would have been on the sunward side.

59
 We recall that Babylonian astronomers were in the practice of making entries into their astronomical records not just when comets heliacally rose but also when they ceased moving relative to the fixed stars (i.e., became stationary; F. Richard Stephenson, “The Ancient History of Halley's Comet,” in
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
, ed. Norman Thrower [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990], 244). Therefore what was happening in Virgo's womb during this period would have been duly noted.

60
 Joseph N. Marcus, “Forward-Scattering Enhancement of Comet Brightness. I. Background and Model,”
International Comet Quarterly
29 (2007): 57 fig. 15.

61
 Assuming n=4.

62
 Strikingly, Mark Bailey, Director of the Armagh Observatory, commented regarding Comet Holmes's outburst, “Astronomy is always full of surprises. These events make you think. Could the Star of Bethlehem have been a comet displaying a brightness outburst like this?” (
http://
star
.arm
.ac
.uk
/press
/2007/cometholmes
[last modified October 10, 2012]).

63
 Assuming n=4 and not taking into account forward-scattering. If the comet was spotted earlier than December of 7 BC, or if n=5, then the magnitude and the intensity of the brightness would, of course, have been greater.

64
 The surface brightness of the coma at this stage would therefore have been at least +8.8 magnitudes per square arcsecond (if n=4; +6.6 if n=5) (without taking into account the 1-magnitude brightness boost due to forward-scattering—Marcus, “Background and Model,” 57 fig. 15). Especially given its size, the coma would have been a very striking sight. All estimates of “surface brightness” are based on the “Surface Brightness Calculator” by David Benn,
http://
www
.users
.on
.net
/~dbenn
/ECMAScript
/surface
_brightness.html
(last modified June 16, 2005). The width (minor axis) is reckoned to be 40% of the length (major axis) and the shape of the coma is assumed to be elliptical.

65
 These values do not take into account forward-scattering—the comet nucleus now had a phase angle of 140 degrees, which would have given the sunward side of the coma a brightness boost of about 2 magnitudes beyond what our apparent magnitude values based on absolute magnitude and slope values would suggest (Marcus, “Background and Model,” 57 fig. 15).

66
 Even at n=3, a 6-degree coma would have had an apparent magnitude of -8.6 to -11.5 and a surface brightness of approximately +11.8 to +8.9 magnitudes per square arcsecond. More likely, n was 4 or 5. Furthermore, the forward-scattering effect and the fact that the comet was narrowly inclined to the ecliptic were boosting its brightness. The overall and surface brightness of the coma may have been greater (i.e., lower in negative numbers) by 5 magnitudes or more.

67
 It should perhaps also be observed that Jer. 4:31 associates the bringing forth of a first child with greater anguish (as noted in Stol,
Birth in Babylonia and the Bible
, 139). This may be relevant because Virgo was imagined to be a virgin and hence this was her first delivery.

68
 For more on this meteor storm, see appendix 2.

69
 Not taking account of the forward-scattering effect.

70
 Marcus, “Background and Model,” 57 fig. 15.

71
 At the time the cometary coma was right beside Mercury (according to our orbit, the nucleus was about ¾ degree from it).

72
 From the point of the beginning of labor (October 15, when the comet was 0.38 AU from Earth) until the birth (October 20, when the comet was 0.21 AU from Earth) the coma essentially doubled in diameter (from 5.82 to 11.38 degrees). It is sometimes claimed that, as a comet makes a close approach to Earth (within about 0.4 AU), the outer edges of the growing coma may go undetected by the human eye for various reasons. This is called the Delta Effect, on which see Joseph N. Marcus, “The Need for Cometary Photometry,”
International Amateur-Professional Photoelectric Photometry Communication
8 (1982): 29; L. Kamel, “The Comet Light Curve Catalogue/Atlas,”
Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
92 (1992): 85–149; idem, “The Delta-Effect in the Light Curves of 13 Periodic Comets,”
Icarus
128 (1997): 145–159; David W. Hughes, N. McBride, J. Boswell, and P. Jalowiczor, “On the Variation of Cometary Coma Brightness with Comet-Earth Distance (the Delta Effect),”
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
263 (1993): 247–255. However, the Delta Effect is highly controversial and it may simply reflect local observing conditions, the experience and eyesight of those observing, and the different altitude within the dome of the sky at which the object is observed.

73
 Assuming n=4. When the Sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, the sky is essentially as dark as it gets. When it is 15 degrees below the horizon, astronomers can see almost all the stars but struggle to observe faint and diffuse objects such as galaxies. When the cometary baby was born on October 20, 6 BC, the entire tail and most of the coma would have risen above the eastern horizon in a completely dark sky (when the Sun was more than 18 degrees below the horizon) and hence would have been easily seen. The very lowest segment of the coma would have risen when astronomical twilight was just beginning, with the whole coma and tail visible when the Sun was 15 degrees below the horizon. Since the comet was very bright, it would have been clearly visible to the Magi in Babylon at that point. Incidentally, from October 5 to 19 the whole coma appeared above the horizon when the Sun was more than 18 degrees below the horizon.

74
 If n=5 and the comet was first spotted in the latter half of 7 BC.

75
 Marcus, “Background and Model,” 57 fig. 15. Earth was in a great location from which to see any sunward spike, consisting of the concentration of larger particles close to the cometary head, particles too large for the Sun to force behind the coma. Indeed, since the Christ Comet was narrowly inclined to the ecliptic plane, it, like Comet Lulin, may have had a continual sunward spike. However, the extent to which the Christ Comet's antitail would have been visible to the naked eye is impossible to determine.

76
 At the time of the cometary baby's full emergence from the womb, the Magi might well have noted that Mercury was present in lower Virgo, next to
κ
Virginis (the nucleus was just under 2.5 degrees from Mercury). At the same time, Mars was located just to the south of Virgo's crown.

77
 The Magi would presumably have taken note of the date and the time (the watch of dawn), and the fact that the Moon was in the constellation Aquarius, the Sun in the constellation Libra, Jupiter in Taurus, Saturn in Pisces, and Venus in Scorpius, even while the comet, Mars, and Mercury were all in Virgo. At the same time, because in astrology, when a birth was in view, locations within the preestablished zodiacal signs (30-degree segments of the zodiacal region) were more important, astrologers would normally have classified the locations of the celestial bodies in those terms: with respect to the zodiacal signs, the Moon had just moved into Aquarius, the Sun was in Libra, Jupiter in Aries or Taurus (the Bab­ylo­nians were not always consistent regarding the divisions of the zodiacal signs and tended to start the zodiacal system a few degrees before the First Point of Aries [as noted by Hermann Hunger, F. Richard Stephenson, C. B. F. Walker, and K. K. C. Yau,
Halley's Comet in History
(London: British Museum, 1985), 15]), Venus in Scorpius, Mercury in Libra, Saturn in Aries, and Mars in Virgo. However, in the case of the birth of Jesus, the wonders in the heavens were so explicit, dramatic, and awesome that even hardnosed Magi would have realized that horoscopy was inappropriate (not to mention unnecessary) on that occasion. In Jerusalem, the Magi emphasized that the omen announcing the Messiah's birth related to the Star at or around the time of its rising (Matt. 2:2). This suggests that the omen that impressed them was not the horoscope but a non-horoscopic nativity omen. Moreover, the comet was clearly interacting with the constellation figures as a whole, rendering the zodiacal constellations much more important for their analysis than the zodiacal signs.

In none of the extant horoscopes from Babylon do we have an interpretation of horoscopic data (Rochberg,
Babylonian Horoscopes
, 10; see Stol,
Birth in Babylonia and the Bible
, 95–98). This is not necessarily a great loss. J. D. North,
Horoscopes and History
(London: The Warburg Institute, University of London, 1986), xi, makes the point that historians frequently ask how ancient astrologers would have interpreted the horoscope of a particular historical figure, failing to appreciate that astrological interpretations typically consisted of whatever the astrologer thought the subject wanted to hear.

78
 Assuming n=4.

79
 What Zechariah prophesies in Luke 1:78–79 (“the rising [star]/Branch shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace”) may imply that the Star would become especially bright at the point when, after rising, it seemed to “visit” the earth. If so, what Rev. 12:5 views as a divine snatching away to safety, Zechariah and Luke would be paradigming as a stellar visitation to the earth.