Blurry Creatures - EP: 383 The True Star of the Magi with Caleb Jones

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

What was the Star of Bethlehem? A miraculous light? An angel? A comet? Attorney and biblical researcher Caleb Jones brings a library of books and years of astronomical study to the basement to present the most compelling answer we've ever heard: the Star of the Magi was the combined light of Jupiter and Venus merging into a single point of light in the sky, not once, but twice.On August 12, 3 BC, a rare planetary conjunction appeared in the eastern sky for just ninety minutes before dawn and was visible only to those whose job it was to watch the stars. Ten months later, on June 17, 2 BC, an even more spectacular once-in-a-millennium conjunction occurred, visible to everyone, setting over the hill of Bethlehem at the exact location tradition holds as the house of Joseph and Mary.Caleb walks us through astronomy, ancient calendars, the chronology of Herod's death, the census of Quirinius, and why the world still counts time based on the reign of Jesus Christ. This isn't just about solving a Christmas mystery. It's about how God speaks to people where they are and even through systems He told Israel not to use. The Magi were pagan astrologers doing pagan astrology, and God used the very stars they were watching to lead them to His Son. They arrived with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and they worshiped. The star wasn't magic. It was astronomy. And somehow, that makes it even more miraculous. Merry Christmas from Blurry Creatures! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Go to Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash blurry for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quins.com slash blurry. The Star of the Magi is the combined light of Jupiter and Venus into a single point of light in the sky. And so whenever the scripture talks about the star, it's talking about Jupiter and Venus that are so close together that they look like a single point of light in the sky. The history of our Earth is so different from what we can imagine. The Smithsonian, that if they found out about a large skeleton somewhere, was a lot of the world. to go get it. I'm going to assume at least one person is right, because if one person's right to bust the paradigm,

it all goes back to the fallen chair. And the problem with the modern day church, they have a very truncated view of the supernatural. This backdrop that's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning associated with this Mount Herman event. And this guy defects from the kingdom. That's a big deal. All right. It's Christmas time again. Again.

It's Groundhog Day. Yeah. Again. And the good news is I haven't heard Mariah Carey yet. And, but it's coming. We all know it's coming. But we got Caleb Jones in here. We're going to do a blurry Christmas episode.

I wish we had some sort of, we should have decorated the studio in Christmas gear. But welcome to the show. Caleb. We're excited. We're going to do the star of Bethlehem today. We are. And get into it. But first, you listen to the show.

So you can tell us a little bit about yourself. And then what are your thoughts on Bigfoot? So I am an attorney in Virginia, and when I'm not litigating cases, when I'm not basically suing people and defending innocent people getting sued, I am reading old books. I study the Bible and I'm drawn to the weird parts of scripture. And so that seems to be what your show is about too. And thoughts on Bigfoot. Everything I know about Bigfoot, I learned from blurry creatures. So I don't have too many. Me too. Wait, so you have no thoughts? This is not a good endorsement. Well, I'll say this. What I like about it, you know, my old thoughts on Bigfoot.

There are, there is a, he's one of, it's C.S. Lewis would have been totally okay with Bigfoot in the discarded image book that he writes. There's an entire chapter on the Long Gevee, the Long Livers, and these are not, they're not so much angels. They're not so much heavenly, but they're also not earthly. They kind of fit a middle realm. They're the elves, the fauns, things of that nature. So, hey, he's probably in that category. A long liver? Yeah.

Not like an actual, like an Oregon. I know. I know. I just, I never heard that term. Like a long spleen. Is that where you got caught up there? Yeah. Yeah.

No, this is awesome. A paranormal pancreas. Nate, I can't believe you'd start off saying you haven't heard Mariah Carey because this is our Christmas episode. By the time this air, is you have heard Mariah Carey more than you could probably even imagine. I know. I'm not really excited, though, because Caleb, I was actually, I spent. months last year trying to work on doing an episode about the

Antivity Star, the Christmas Star. There was a book written by Dr. Colin Nicol. And like he's a ghost. We kind of are talking pre-roll about this, but he talks about a Christ Comet. What I love about you and our correspondence that you, especially what you had with Nate, is that confidently you said you know more about this subject than anybody out there. I don't know if you said anyone alive.

Because you talked about old books as well, being like all this information's out there. People just need to collect it. And your Twitter campaign sold it too. He was like he was daily tweeting at us like day, you know, day five, still trying to get on blurry creatures. And it worked. That's why I don't get on any of the social media. I know. I was very happy that it worked.

I'll just leave it there. But you know more than anybody else. That's a bold plan. The problem is is that unfortunately the world doesn't know it. So I mean. That's what we're here for. There you go. And if you can't see.

If you're not watching, Caleb brought an entire life. library with him, like a good lawyer with it. Under the desk. It's all here. But where do we begin with all this? Because everyone knows the story, right? It's this Matthew 2. There's a star. Exactly. And it guides, it's not just a normal star. And start a software where we want to go. Yeah, that's the thing. We will definitely get to the story itself. We're going to read that. But one of the things that I want to start out with is just kind of like the history for the search. I kind of see the star of Bethlehem and the star of the magi as kind of like the Christmas Bigfoot. Everybody's looking for it.

You get glimpses of it. No one can ever actually find it. Well, we're going to find the Christmas Bigfoot now. But before we get there, we need to talk about like the history of the search. And this is part of my show and tell. So there's been a lot of, you can go ancient and some of the people who talked about it originally. This would be origin, ironace, and they've mentioned it. But by that time, they don't really know what it was. And they're really just concentrating on the scriptures itself and kind of commenting on it. The kind of consensus after a while was that it was a miraculous star. It wasn't a natural star or anything like that. And they kind of just move on that it was an angelic presence or something like that.

But things really changed in the modern times, which is that, and I'll give the history of that. So this is my first show and tell. Let's go. Yes. This is like a science project in high school. This is a box of stuff. There's a volcano in here. We're going to make it happen.

In 1962, a guy named Bryant Tuckerman. created, he plugged in some formulas into an IBM 704 computer. And this is the original chat GPT. So yeah, this is, look at that. Yeah, that is an IBM 704. And he produced an ephemorous. And that is really just a list of coordinates of just positions of planets. And this is the one from 601 BC to 1 AD.

And so this was kind of the first comprehensive way that you could get the positions of planets in the sun and the moon. And that is what originally was produced. And in 1968 is when there was an article in Sky and Telescope, just looking at this and saying, hey, let's look at conjunctions. Let's look of all these things and see what could the star of Bethlehem been. That moved on to a guy named David Hughes who wrote an article in nature. and he commented on that and he did a lot of good work on that. But the problem is that this is really inaccurate. You saw the computer.

It's got rounding errors and it does all kinds of stuff like that. It's just, it's not correct. It's good for navigation, but not really knowing of what it looked like. But then in the 80s, it actually changed because they got a new... We upgraded. They upgraded. They got an Apple LC2. Exactly.

Yeah. So, but they, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's a planetary theory called the VsOP 87, and this is what people actually use now. And that really opened things up. And there are several books. John Mosley wrote a book called The Christmas Star, Ernest L. Martin, who I think is a big person who has a huge influence. He wrote a star called The Star That Astonished the World. And you can tell that they're actually using a more accurate position of the planets in that.

And so- Caleb, is that where Ernest saves Christmas comes from? Is that the... I don't think that one's in. You would love to be in the room with all these guys. Oh, I would totally love to be in the room. And now, Ernest... I didn't realize there was this many books written about it.

Oh, there's far more. These are just the books that I know are kind of published by actual not self-published or anything. I couldn't go to journal articles. There's so much. It's everywhere. Interesting. But Ernest L. Martin is really important, I think, because with this show, and Friends of the Show, no. Michael Heiser is very convinced by Ernest Martin.

ideas, but something that is something that just happens over and over again. When people look for the Star of Bethlehem, they always look to Revelation 12. And I don't like to do that, because there's a theory about why Revelation 12 is actually the star of the Magi. You have to go through an argument. I don't want to know that. The star is whatever you read about in Matthew. I don't want to go, I want to look at Matthew to find out what that is. There are others. Michael Mulnar wrote a book. He does a lot of astrology. Frederick Larson, he's done the DVD that everybody's seen. And that was, it's recently for sale again. I watched it just a little bit before coming here in preparation. Aaron Adair wrote a book called The Skeptical View, which basically

concludes, it's all fake, and none of you know what you're talking about. And the last, I think, the most recent is Colin Nicol, who wrote the Great Christ Comment. And it's similar to Martins, but it's about a comment instead of the planetary conjunctions. There are some... And you've read all these books? I have them all. I've mostly read them. What I want to know is what is their theory.

And you haven't read the skeptical of you. I like that. That's a good lawyer. It's a lawyer. You see the other side. It's hard. It's hard in these spaces because people want to sort of prove, they want to prove it and they don't want to see the other side.

You know, I've got a lot of stories I could tell you offline about how it is difficult. Whenever there's something that's difficult to prove, people like the theory and they stick to it. What I've seen too, and I think is interesting is a lot of these, whether it'd be Colin Nicol or the DVD you talked about, one of the things when you look these up online is people poking holes in all of the theories, right? Everything that's been put out, it seems, has been, maybe this is just the sort of the nature of being online, but it's been sort of taken apart. So what do you, that being said, where do we go? What are the main questions we're going to answer? Yeah, so these are questions that I think we're going to answer in this first part. And just number one, what is the star?

What's happening when the star went before them? What's happening when it came and stood? And we want to know if it's ambiguous. Does the star actually guide the magi to the house of Jesus? And those are the things that I want to talk about with what we have. But I think the first thing we should probably do is actually just read it. Yeah. Because this is the text that we have, and this is what we're looking at.

And this comes from Matthew 2. First guy to read the scripture with a tie on. Really? Is it the message? I think it's in KJV. No, that's not the message. We don't do that. We've never had a man with a tie reading the script.

Yeah, he only maris really what I teased it, but he's not a maybe not a tie guy. So congratulations. Oh, there you go. You're the first. You're just classing this place up. I mean, apparently so. You're bringing it. You're bringing to class it up.

Let's read the good. We started low and we're working our way up to high brow content here. Oh, you're about to get real high brow. Here we go. And the brow ridge. We started with there. There, Bigfoot's Proud Ridge, and now we're bringing it. Now we're digressing.

Yeah, now we're going backwards. Every single Bible story, something weird happens on a mountain. Freeze. Listen, guys, this always happens. There's so many questions about theology and how to deal with the paranormal and UFOs and giants and werewolves. And does the Bible even say anything about that? And so I'm really excited to let you guys know that me, Luke, and Nate have joined together

to create a brand new product, a brand new resource called Stranger Theoboves. It's hosted on Substack. It's going to come with three to four different theology essays a month written by myself and a team of resident theologians and scholars that we really trust. It also is the place where we're going to premiere season one of the Cosmic Mountain series, 12 episodes, one episode a month that releases, and we're going to do quarterly live question response times with me and these guys and some special guests along the way. And so we want to invite you to join us there because we think it's going to be epic. Listen, you should not. be bored with the Bible. And also, we're not going to protect you from the Bible. It's time to explore the cosmic realm in honesty and humility. You can learn more at the subsect. Just go to stranger theology.substack.com. Unpause. What just happened? Whoa. That was a weird episode. Did I blacked out for a second? Me too. We need help. All right. So Matthew 2 says, now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men or magi,

from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, where is he who has been born King of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him? When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written in the prophet. But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah. for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the young child. And when you have found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. When they heard the king, they departed. And behold, the star which they had seen in the east went before them

till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they cut come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented to him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way. So, that is the story. And I'm not going to draw it out anymore. Let's just answer.

What is the star of the magic? here's my answer. The star of the Magi is the combined light of Jupiter and Venus into a single point of light in the sky. And so whenever the scripture talks about the star, it's talking about Jupiter and Venus that are so close together that they look like a single point of light in the sky.

And so what I've done here, this is just a screenshot that I took. This is from a program called Stellarium, and it is using that, B-S-O-P-87 theory, and it's just showing the sky at a particular time. I put us in Baghdad, so we're in the east, and the date here is August 12th, and you can see we're looking east, and there is a particularly bright star that's rising in the east. We're kind of sped up time.

We've gone about an hour so far, and you can see that the sun is rising. And the sun is rising and it is drowning out all the light of the stars. But that brightest star right there is going to be the last one to fade. But eventually it is also going to be swallowed by the dawn. And so that is an interesting thing. But I want you to look back at the star because the thing we need to notice about this star is that it's not just one star. on August 12th, if you go back, we're at about 515, 510, and we can turn back and we can zoom in. What yours is this?

This is 3 BC, August 12th, 3 BC. And you can look, that's Jupiter with the Galilean moons, and then that is Venus. And if you had a telescope, you could see these as two different lights in the sky. But if you're a naked eye observer, like all the magi were and everyone was back then, that would look like a single point of light in the sky. And what I'm showing you is this is the star in the east. There are a lot of different ways that you can talk about east. Oh, is it the star at its rising? Did they see the star when they were in the east?

The good news about this one is that this is everything. They're in the east. They're looking east. The star is rising. This is every possible way that you could think about that phrase. it's doing all of them together. So it would be sticking out like a sore thumb in the sky. So kind of.

If you've ever wonder why Herod and Jerusalem didn't see it, which is that this star is only visible for a single day. It's not visible the day before as a single point of light, and the day after it's also. So it's just there. And it's only there for about an hour and a half because it's between 3.30 a.m. and 5.20. So only if you're a professional, if this is your job, that's the only reason you'd be watching for it and looking for it. That is kind of step one of my work in theory.

We'll go further on this. So if it's only invisible for what is this? Hour and a half on one morning in August. I'm sure you're going to take us there, but how in the world do they follow the star and does it stand over Bethlehem and all those things? The language is really interesting. Let me, yeah, I'll take you there. But before I want to do that, I do want to explain that the question about what it is and if these are two planets, is that a single star? Well, we think that we know what stars are because, oh, there's a flaming ball of hydrogen gas in the vacuum of space.

But that's not what the Bible is talking about whenever it says stars. A star is a light in the sky. You can't distinguish between, you know, a planet and a star in that way about hydrogen gas and this thing. light. And if you have two lights that are so close together, they become a single light, that's a single star. It's a single light. So August 12, 3 BC is a star in the east. And you asked about what it means that it went before them. This is when it gets kind of complicated. That, the, the version 2.9, it's talking about them going to Herod, but then the tense of the verb, it jumps back in time, and it gives, it gives ongoing action in the past. The star went before

them. It's not a, it's just always ongoing. But the thing we need to realize is that the stars are always moving before you. The sky is always moving and it's always going before you. And so this is just language about Jupiter and Venus. If the star is the combined light of Jupiter and Venus, they're always going before you and it's description of the ordinary motion of the sky. And I can show you that. And so this is our August 12th. And we what we're going to do is we're not going to show just a speed up time. We're going to go one frame per day. And what this is going to do is going to cancel the spin of the earth, and we're just going to see at the same time what the sky looked like. And you can see Jupiter and Venus are in that

conjunction, and then Venus goes down, and Jupiter proceeds westward. And so it is rising earlier and earlier in the morning, and it is appearing further and further west each night. And so that is what the star looked like day by day. I mean, the earth is moving, but their positions in the sky are changing. Now, the Magi didn't stay in the east, and they therefore traveled to Jerusalem, and the star moved until a certain point. And what we're looking right now is really, west and I've changed the landscape to something a little bit more rocky, not so much like the plains of Mesopotamia, but we're somewhere like in Jerusalem and Judea. And you can see Mars is wandering, Saturn's there, the moon is zipping by, and then we're going to see something. Venus

is now an evening star. It has come around the sun and Jupiter is moving further and further west. and you can see that the star that they had seen in the east, which is the combined light of Jupiter and Venus, came again. And this date is June 17th to BC. And so that's 10 months apart. We have two conjunctions of Jupiter and Venus, 10 months apart. And that's where we have.

This is not like the last one. If you had a telescope, you'd be able to see the difference. This is a much more dramatic conjunction. You can take a look. We're going to zoom in right here. This is crazy. You got visuals. So the people listening at home on audio or in your car, you'd have to go on our YouTube to check it out.

Yeah. So Venus is in its brightest face. Jupiter is brighter than it was. It's closer to the earth. And so this, Venus is the brightest star in the sky. And it's going to be a different color to everybody, right? So not so much a different color, but notice. Larger and brighter. It's the first thing that's going to appear as the sun goes down and this is definitely the brightest star in the sky and

Unlike the first one which is visible for about an hour and a half three 30 in the morning the 520 not everybody's awake This one is at a time when everyone would be able to see it as well is it too soon to ask is there like some sort of Reason why Jupiter and Venus would be the combination in terms of like a thematically so So that is a question of who the magi were. And I can tell you that the magi, there's a lot of talk about, oh, the magi were talking to Daniel. Well, the distance of time between Daniel and now is about 500 or 600 years. It's about the time between now and Christopher Columbus. I see that as a pretty weak theory.

I am of the opinion that it's just ordinary astrology. And we'll get, I'd like to get into that in a different. episode if we can. But yeah, there's there's an astrological reason that attracted the magi to this, to this event. That's their job. They are astrologers. Astrology was ubiquitous. And so this was an astrological thing that happened. And so, but what's happening in Matthew 2.9 is the star that they had seen in the east, the combined light of Jupiter and Venus, separated, it went before them in the sky, until it came, it arrived again, and it came back together. Did you know that only 6% of people ever actually accomplish their goal of reading the

Bible in a year? And I think one of the big issues is you end up hitting Libyticus and you're confused. It's chaotic. How the heck do I make sense of these weird, clean, unclean rituals and sacrifices? And what we really want is for the story to make sense. So I'm really excited to announce for the very first time, I've never actually seen this ever before, a read the Bible in a year plan where we're going to look at the stranger parts of Scripture. We're going to take the things that are odd, weird, Leviathan, giants, Nephilim, the unseen realm and cosmic battle, and we're going to bring coherence to that. We're not going to protect you from your Bibles. We're going to explore it with you, with honesty and humility. And really excited we've got, for the first time ever, the Stranger Theology

Journal in a year working through the Bible. This is going to be the way for you to keep track of your reading plan. We've got 12 exclusive essays in here, infographics and a prayer list. I mean, I think this can be really helpful for you to read the cosmic narrative of the scriptures. So grab the stranger theology, the Bible in a year journal today. You can grab it on Amazon and I'm telling you this is going to change your life, not because of what we've done, but because it's the scriptures. And the scriptures come alive when we understand the cosmic narrative of the text. We see when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy, which if you're an astronomer, if you are, if this is your job, this is a very unique thing. I'll note that Jupiter and Venus have a conjunction just about once a year.

But normally they're separated. You know, one will pass above another, they'll pass below another. But they will come so close that they will appear like a single kind of the, usually it's a lot, closer to the sun. And so it's a lot more difficult to see. The further out they get from the sun, the more difficult it is for them to actually combine into a single point of light. That first one was probably a one in a hundred year event. This one is about a once in a millennium event. It doesn't happen like that ever. And so two of them happening within 10 months of each other, it's a big deal. It doesn't happen very often, which I think is why we have a good

idea of this being the one that we're talking about since it's happening. I remember the last solar eclipse. It was like everyone was outside waiting for the, you know, the full eclipse. It's a big deal if you know it's coming. I remember I went to my kid's school and there was like a celebration and everyone was stop. It was a cool moment. I can imagine that's what it was to the ancient world.

Plus most of the ancients spent time watching the sky at night. They didn't have Netflix or anything of that. So they were watching. They were tracking these things. In fact, like civilizations like the Babylonians, the Sumerians, these other like ancient nearest and civilization. And the Celts, everybody else track these to a T, whether it's the Aztec calendar or the Mayan calendar or the Mayan calendar or the alignment of all the temples in Sardinia or in Ireland. Everything is celestually aligned because this is what they did. They tracked the stars. Even more in the Bible,

we just to just to tease our stranger theology, it's more of an in-depth thing that we're doing. It's coming up. We did an episode on Mount Moriah and that mountain specifically, Joel was saying of that the worship, you know, Venus and Jupiter. There was this connection on that mountain specifically that there was, basically the ancients were born to star worship. Yeah, you key with your star god, refite, yeah, that is a, you will find in the scriptures places where it says that Israel is worshipping particular stars as deities. Yeah.

That's definitely a thing. And also, I mean, keep in mind, the Hebrew calendar is just an observational astronomical calendar. And so in the Middle Ages, Maimonides kind of makes it mathematical. But at the time, how do you know what day it is? You go out and you look at the sky. That's how you know what your day is in your calendar. So, Kayla, we've got two events that happened 10 months apart. What do we make of all that? Well, one of the thing that I like about what you can make of this is that it gives you a good idea of chronology, which is that because we can know about the time whenever these planets are moving, we have two events in the scriptures about when two things

happened. And this one was, they were closed for a while, June 17th, though, that's the only day that those two stars appear as a single point of light. But we've talked about how the star was seen in the east, how it arrived. And then the question is, what does it mean that it stood? This is actually one of the things that gets translated, the weirdest in all these different verses. You'll get, you'll see that the traditional one is it went before them. until it came and stood. The NIV says that it stopped. It came before the until it came to rest. Is the ESV and RSV? It guided them to Bethlehem. My favorite, the CSB, it came and stopped above the place where the child was. But the question is what that actually means. At the end of the day,

it's not the issue of the two Greek verbs. It's basically came and stood. And the only other time, there's a time where Jesus stood before Pilot at his trial. That's not about his motion. That's about his location. He was before pilot when he was doing that. And whenever we were talking before, we were seeing one frame per day and we're kind of seeing a kind of an artificial view of the sky. But what I've done is I've changed it. And now we're just looking at a kind of fast-forwarded time, we're on the same day, and if you are just looking at the sky, eventually that star in the west is going to fall to the horizon. And when it falls to the horizon, if you're a first-person observational viewer, it's going to be over a particular place on the horizon. And so you can see,

we'll just stop time right there, it's right above the horizon and it's over a particular place. and that is what I'm saying is happening with the star and what's happening with the description here. It's not a technical thing. It's a very observational, first person intuitive way. It's not an issue of, oh, the retrograde motion. No, it is describing something. It's actually describing something quite ordinary, unique, but really ordinary. Because that's the thing you need to notice about Matthew 2.

It's not describing a miracle. It's describing something that happened. And that's what we have here. That we can retrace the language as we can go backwards and figure out where it was. Exactly. And if it was, I think a lot of times we just tend to assume any story in the Bible is like all these supernatural events. It's like something like. Which a lot are.

Which are. Yeah. But that we just assume that's what it was. Like it was some sort of magical. I was to say it feels like we want to magify. Magify. The magi. Yeah.

But do you want to make it magical? And, like, there's probably a very good fact that God works through creation. To the things he created, there's probably a very good physical, natural explanation. Yeah, but I'll tell you this. This right now we've started, oh, this is all very natural, okay? It gets weirder. Let's go. It gets much we're.

But first, I want to talk about the language. We talk about the star, Bethlehem, Star, Bethlehem, Star, Bethlehem, Star, Bethlehem. But remember, there's actually the star of the magi. Yeah. And there was the star in the east and the star of Beathlehem. and the star of Bethlehem. The star in the east was the August 12th, 3 BC. The June 17th, 2 BC is the star of Bethlehem.

So those two combined collectively are the star of the Magi. And for those listening, you know, to remind us how much time between the two? It's about 10 months. And so the question is, how long does it take to get from the east to Jerusalem? You have a journey like that recorded with Nehemiahen. It takes him about three or four months. So we have enough time to move from the east to Judea during that time. And so that's a cool theory, but the question is if we can prove it.

And yes, you can, but we need to look at the text. I love that you. The text, of course I can. It's on the screen. But something we need to notice, we read the story and something I will tell you, everything you read in your Bible is true, but not everything you've heard about what you're reading in your Bible is true. One of the things that people assume is that the magi just went to Herod, as if they can just get an audience with the king just by showing up to, no, that's not, I wasn't there, but I just don't think I can, you know, go and see Donald Trump because I show it to America.

Yeah. And that's just not how it works. Instead, it says, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem. It doesn't say that they went to Herod. It says they went to Jerusalem. And they start asking, you know, where is the one who's been born, King of the Jews? They start talking about this star that they saw. And it says, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all of Jerusalem with him.

That word troubled, it doesn't mean fear. It's like a bridge over troubled waters stirred up. Everyone's talking about this. This is a, it's a big event. and then Herod summoned the wise men secretly. And the question is, why would Herod do that? A lot of times people start to say, oh, Herod is, he's actually plotting to kill this child. We're not told that.

One good reason why you would summon the wise men secretly is that they are astrologers, and he's the king of the Jews. You don't do astrology if you're going to follow the law of Moses. That's not something that you should openly do. You have to summon them secretly. It's like Saul. It's like Saul working with the medium. Exactly. He wants to know about it, but he wants to keep it.

Well, how do you think they knew? I mean, obviously they know first. Word on the street. How do you think they knew? You talk about the Magi? Yeah. Like, it sounds like they're the ones they're like. They're astronomers, right? They were watching. They're astronomers. They're the ones you saw it. They know there's a celestial event, but how do they know Jesus was born? They are, if you go to Pliny the Elder, Book 30 talks about.

the magic arts. This is a Roman encyclopedia, and he is talking about the magi, who are the Persian, you know, priests. They are the, they're basically the Levites of the Persians. They're the ones who were doing all the religious stuff, and they had incorporated astrology into their repertoire. And so they are astrologers. And astrology was ubiquitous. It was popular. It was, the Romans didn't really like it, because that's a foreign, it's foreign religion. But that It's definitely a thing. Everyone was really into astrology. And these are the experts in astrology. And so they are, it's, it's something that's exciting. I don't know. It's something like, well, it, it, I mean, let's just put in practical terms. It's like, some guys show up and say, hey, where's the Nintendo, you know, I know it's here. And they're, and all the people, we're like, wait, what? You know, where, what are you talking about? How do you know this thing? It's very specific of they know a king is born. Or even better. And then everyone's on panic of like, wait a minute. everybody's, you know, in Jerusalem on their Nintendo. And then a bunch of Magi come in and say, hey, have you heard about the Super Nintendo?

Yeah. Like, oh, it's, you know, it's something. We've got Griffey baseball. Exactly. And Golden Eye. That was 64. Sorry. Come on.

That was a couple of years later. That was the next celestial event. Yeah. And another thing we need to realize, though, is that Herod did not live in Jerusalem. Herod lived in Herodium. He built himself a palace. It's called Herodium. There's a, it's an archaeological site.

It's in Israel. It's the city of Toccoa. Amos was from Toccoa. And it is about northeast of Toccoa. And so it's actually southwest of Jerusalem. And this is really, this is where I get in my research. We have a lot of, so Herodian sent the Magi. He summoned the Magi from Jerusalem, where they're giving their talk to himself at Herodium.

And they talk about it. How far is that, those from each other? 10 miles. Okay. Miles in the sandal, baby. So this is a book. It's just a book of archaeology, and these are, it just maps out roads that were in ancient in Israel.

You can see, I've got a map there. Dude, how do you get to all this stuff so fast? I'm proud of you. Oh, man. If I could tell you how long I've spent on this subject. But yeah. All you're here, Caleb. Let's go.

So there's sort of like news is circulating. These dudes came into town. They know something we don't know. Maybe we've heard of this rumor before. So we know we need to get these guys over here to tell us, hey, what's going down? Exactly. And they go 10 miles and they hang, and they roll in. I will also let you know, too, which is that I tried to not talk about Herod the Great at this time because it would take too long.

Harrod the Great is one of the most interesting people you could ever talk about. I mean, he knew Cleopatra, he knew Julius Caesar. He was friends with all these, you know, roe. Caesar Augustus, everyone you've heard about, he knows them. And he has an extremely interesting life. And something that we always talk about is, oh, he was very jealous for his throne. He wanted to keep his throne. He wanted to do that. And so he's killing all of these people who are trying to take his throne. That's not exactly very accurate. Herod is old. He knows that he is going to die. And the entire drama that you can read in Josephus is,

who am I going to give my kingdom to when I die? That is the thing that he is trying to figure out. He's always changing his testament for lots of different reasons. And so if a bunch of astrologers from the East come to Jerusalem saying, hey, we don't know who he is, but there is this heaven-blessed person somewhere in Judea that the stars have told us about, he's going to be a really big deal. Herod wants to know that because it's too old to be him

it's too old to be any of his children but it could very well be some of his grandchildren so the question of who gets my kingdom after this is information that Herod would definitely want to know not because he's trying to kill the child but because he wants to see who is this who do I give my kingdom to

but getting back to this map so we can actually just plot out where we are. You get a star of Jerusalem. I've got a blue dot for Bethlehem, and you can see Herodium down there. And these are just the roads. The dots are archaeological sites, and that's how they can reconstruct this. David Dorsey is the book. I can zoom in a little bit more. And so this red line, I'm just going to say they're going to go south. They're going to take a left, head over towards Toccoa, there's a road that goes to Toccoa and they're going to go to Herodium. And then whenever Herod sends them from Herodium to Bethlehem, we can retrace their steps and we can do it

on Google Earth. Now, this is, I'm kind of proud of this, so get ready. All right, let's go. Let's go. You can see, this is just a view of Google Earth. I start in Virginia, but we're not going to go to Virginia. We are going to Zoom away. We're going to go all the way to the east, we're going to go to Babylon, which is an ancient site of astrological and astronomical knowledge. And I can't prove that the magi came from here, but this is, if you're going to be an expert in astrology, this is probably where you're going to be coming from. We're at Google Earth, and I really like this, because you can actually change your perspective and you can look. And so now we are looking east, you can see, and we have an eastern view of the land.

We have an eastern view of the sky, but I'm not very sophisticated, but what I've done is I went back to my program and I took a screenshot of an eastern view of the sky. And then I took an eastern view of the land and I just copied and pasted both of them. So now we're about to get an eastern view of the sky and an eastern view of the land. And this is our, that's that same star on the east. And so this is my very simple, not, you know, I'm not artist rendering. this is Microsoft Paint. I'm sorry. I'm not really that great,

but this is just a recreation of what that would have looked like there. But the Magi didn't stay in there. They went to Jerusalem, and they wouldn't have cut across the desert because that's silly. You would follow the civilization, roads, trade routes. This is the same kind of route that Nehemiah is going. and they came to Jerusalem.

Now, Wiseman from the East came to Jerusalem. And my guess is that they went to the Temple Mount. That is the kind of central hub and obviously the court of the Gentiles. But they're going around just asking, where's the king of the Jews? And so that's where they are. Herod hears about this. And so he summons them to Herodium. And we had a red line about where I said they went to Herodium.

and that's the route that they're taken. Now, Bethlehem's on a hill, and so I just assume that they went around Bethlehem. I don't really know. I don't have that exact knowledge. But one of the things that we can see that this is kind of just the general route that they're taking, and we also know that the route that they're going back to Bethlehem. Sometimes it feels like when you get that phone bill, it's like the crash site document. You can't read it.

There's a bunch of numbers, random fees, vague language, stuff's, blacked out. You're like, what am I actually paying for? I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it. I like to be simple. I like to be easy. I'm going to be thrown away money on big wireless carriers. You too can say goodbye to overpaying for wireless, get a simple bill. And that's where Mint Mobile comes in. So stop overpaying for wireless just because that's how it's always been. That's what you do. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless service for a fraction of what the big carriers charge. And you get to keep your phone number. Get to keep your coverage, most importantly.

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full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra, cement mobile for details. And if you zoom in, this is what I really like to. Once again, this is just Google Earth. You can see that there is a straight route in. And what I love about this too is that if you take the gentlest slope into Bethlehem, Bethlehem sits on a hill. And so if you are approaching Bethlehem from Herodium, you're coming from the east to the west. You're not coming south from Jerusalem. You're coming up from Herodium, and then you're going to turn into Bethlehem. And in order to get to Bethlehem, you have to go through this valley.

And you can see that we are looking directly west and just a little bit north, but still to the west is where you have to climb in order to approach Bethlehem. But before I was talking about, you know, we had an eastern view of the sky and an eastern view of the land and you can just put those together. I'm doing the same thing, which is you just take a western view of the sky and a western view of this land, which has got a different topography. And on June 17th, when that star is falling, the place where it's falling from this position in this location, it looks like that. Wow. So if you're listening, it's a straight path up to the top of the hill where Bethlehem is and

right over the top of the hill would have been the from your view. Yeah. From your purview, your point of view would be the star would be sitting on the hill or above the hill. It's coming down. It's falling to the Western horizon. So it's coming down to the top of the hill. So, yeah, it's literally coming down to the top of the hill.

And if you're walking along this road, you can see it the whole time. It's going to be a little, you know, you're traveling north, and, you know, the star is going to appear kind of in the south, and it's going to fall to the west. And so it's over your shoulder the entire time whenever you're walking from Herodium to Bethlehem. And it's the brightest star that you're not going to miss it, especially if this is your job to look at the stars. Does this look like his... as bright and big as the moon, perhaps? Not quite as big as the moon, but it is, it's noticeable. I mean, whenever you get to, whenever Venus is really bright, it's noticeable.

It looks like an airplane. So this is the light of Jupiter and the light of Venus. That's the first and second brightest. And now they're so close together, you can't tell any difference between them. It looks like a single light. This is the bright. This is the moment. This is the brightest star you will ever see in your life because it's the first and second

brightest stars into a single point. And so, yeah, it is a extremely bright star. Now, what's really cool here, too, is that if you are an astronomer and you like, this is amazing, you want to keep seeing this, there's only one thing you can do. You have to climb that hill in order to continue seeing that star. And so we can go from below in this valley. You're going to go up the road, and you're going to go to the top of the hill. The bad news, however, is that there's another ridge of hills to the west of Bethlehem. And so you're not going to have a very good view for very long, that it's going to disappear behind that even further western view of hills,

and it's the same western view. You can see the star's gone. It's over. This is probably about 9, 30, 10 o'clock at night. It's done. The star is over. the next day it doesn't come back. But the question is, is where are you?

You are at the top of the hill in Bethlehem, and this just so happens to be the location of the Church of the Nativity. What do you know? And the Church of the Nativity is the traditional location of the house of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It is right at the top of the hill. And kind of fun, this is actually the oldest church in the area, because whenever the assassinated Persians came in the 600, I think 614 or 619 sometime around there, they burn all the churches. They're not Christian.

They come into the Christianized Roman Empire at that point, and they burn all the churches, you know, the one church that they don't burn is the church and the nativity. And the reason they don't burn it is because all the iconography shows the magi who are all dressed like Persians. And so this is the long, this is probably the. the best candidate we have for an actual, you know, site of the old location of the house. And what's really interesting about this is that just by trying to look at that star, it will guide you to that location. And so you get there, you look at the star, and all of a sudden,

you turn to your eye, there's one house up here, and there's a baby there. Do you believe Jesus is a baby at this point? What do we, because that's always a thing, like, he's a kid. I know you had it covered, Caleb. You started thinking about all the things you've heard, right? Because there's so much you hear about this. Like, oh, the match I took three years to get there. They might have traveled for a really long time.

And Jesus was a, you know, a kindergartner aged kid, not a, you know. And then Herod murders all the innocence. The murder of the innocence. You have all these different things going on. And it's like, all right, you're getting there. I saw all these questions, but I know you're so linear here. I don't want to ask them because I don't want to read ahead. Nate likes to read ahead.

He's notorious for it. because I'm doing it today. We'll get it, but I'll tell you, this is kind of, this is getting towards the end of my super prepared spot. But the thing I just want to point out, Matthew chapter 2, 9 to 13, and when they had heard the king, they departed and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. When they were coming to the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. And when they opened their treasure, they presented at him gifts, gold and frankincense and myr. That's just an ordinary description of what is happening.

It's an abbreviated description. It kind of gets straight to the point. It doesn't tell you the route. But that is a very matter-of-fact description of exactly what's happening in the star and what actually is happening to travel there. And so, yeah, these were the questions that we had. What is the star of the magi? It is the combined light of Jupiter and Venus into a single point of light in the sky. And what is happening when it went before them?

That's a description of the ordinary motion of Jupiter and Venus in the sky between August 12, 3 BC and June 17, 2 BC. And what happened when the star came and stood, this is a description of the June 17th to BC conjunction. And it's from the perspective of the Magi traveling from Herodium to Bethlehem. And did the star guide the Magi to the House of Jesus? So yes, by simply observing the star for as long as possible, the Magi would have been led either by providence or by chance to the home of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the town of Bethlehem. So that's the story of what the star is. I like that because I think that you can almost get there from a different perspective of like

everything makes sense. Everything is symbolism in scriptures. And we've uncovered this over the years. Like gold frankincense and merr, those aren't just random gifts they bring. Gold represents probably heaven. and mur as like an embalming, you know, the dead body. And all these things make sense. And so Jupiter and Venus would make sense.

Frankences is an essential oil. It's probably health invite God heals the nations, right? He's Frankencence. He's making jokes. But you know what I'm saying? Like, we grew up and heard these stories. And we just like, oh, he's bringing some cool gifts. And they don't have any meaning.

They don't have any, like, history. They don't. I think there's more history to Jupiter and. Venus than we know. Oh, there's a lot going on there. Yeah. And so you ask a question about chronology. And so this is kind of where we'll get into something. We're just going to go straight into it. But you said, oh, was Jesus two years old? Was Jesus there? We're going to get into the chronology of the star and all of that. But I want to talk about when this happens. There's a belief that Herod the Great died in 4 BC. I know where that comes from.

it's wrong. Whenever William Whiston was translating Joseph's works, there is an eclipse that happens before Herodice. And William Whiston puts a footnote in his translation, and he cites to himself to say that the eclipse happened on March 13th, 4B.C. Just from him. And the problem with that, now he had a little bit more complicated view. he thought that there was an eclipse and then like more than a year. And so he had his own work out.

The problem, though, is if you believe that Herod died in 4 BC, you just believe that Luke is wrong whenever he gives the issue about the census corinus. But the issue is, is there are a lot more lunar eclipses that you can just look up. There was also a lunar eclipse on January 10th, 1BC, which is a much better candidate for. for that. You can look at the work of Andrew E. Steinman, W. E. Filmer. They give a good description of why that is the chronology of Herod works out there. And so I'm just going to go on the assumption. Herod died in 1 BC because 1B.C. is the one that assumes that Luke isn't wrong. We also, there's no direct evidence of who was the governor of Syria between 3 BC and 2 BC. but Emil Schur, who wrote A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, notes that the best candidate that we have is Quiridius.

Corrinius was leading a campaign from Syria into Turkey. He received a triumph from it. And so the best person that we have for who the governor was of Syria was Quirinius in 3 to 2 BC. So that's kind of the early church was almost universal that Jesus was born in a a Roman year that corresponds to three to two BC. Example is Tertullian, Answer to the Jews, Chapter 8, in the 41st year of Caesar Augustus when he had been reigning for 28 years after the death of Cleopatra, the Christ is born. So the year is pretty well established, and that also just happens to be the year of when

the star was being seen in all of that. Oh, all right. Yeah, okay. And what are people to think that Christ was born on September 11th? Have you heard that? Oh, yeah, we'll get to that. Okay. Now, I don't think he was born on September 11th, but I don't think that that is a, it's, it's not an insignificant date.

Okay. I think it's definitely there. But this is where things are about to get weird. That's what we're here for. A little bit more show and tell. I got banned from. Caleb in his box of books. I got banned from show and tell many times.

It's like a little library where you go take one and leave one. Yeah. Just Caleb took them all. Yeah. They wanted students to do that and I always brought like a pet rat or something. Sounds on par. In your Frisbee. So this is where we're going to get, I guess, a little blurry.

This is a book. This is Claudius Ptolemy. Now, he wrote the Almajus. He's famous for having the Ptolemaic universe. And he is just the standard for how to predict the motion of the planets for a thousand years up until Copernicus, basically. But he also wrote another book that people don't pay attention to much anymore. because it's about astrology. And this is his book on astrology,

and it's called the Tetra Biblos. And so the question that I want to ask you is, when do the stars in astrology match up to a person? When does the effect have its thing? Oh, it's when they're born, right? Right. Okay, well, this is what Ptolemy says. Since the chronological starting point of human nativities

is naturally the very time of conception, but potentially and accidentally the moment of birth, in cases in which the very time of conception is known, either by chance or by observation, it is more fitting that we should follow it in determining the nature of the body and soul examining the effective power of the configuration of the stars at that time, for to the seed is given once and for all

the beginning of such quality by the endowment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if they do not know the time of conception, which is usually the case, which is usually pretty rude to ask if you're trying to do a royal birth chart. We must follow the starting point firmished by the moment of birth and give to this our attention, for it too is of great importance and fall short of the former only in this respect that by the former it is possible to have four knowledge of events preceding birth. So the best time to see how the stars match to a person is conception. And if you do that at conception, you can know things that happen.

before their birth. Not only just, that is the 100 AD guide on how to do astrology. So whenever you're talking about, oh, well, obviously we're working in the birth, not quite. The magi do not know what they're dealing with.

They don't know if this is about his birth or his conception. And as you'll notice, whenever Herod uses the time to try to kill the children of Bethlehem, he does two years and under. he doesn't know if he's dealing with a birth or conception either. And so you have this range of time of when you're dealing with.

And this is how things are getting complicated and why that's a big deal. But I want to go something over to... So another thing, we're back at August 12th, 2BC. And that's the old star in the east. And that was the thing that got the Magi's attention. And this is where things start to get weird. I told you before that the Hebrew calendar is an observational calendar. And the way that it works is that whenever the moon first appears as a crescent, that's the first day of the month.

And the first month happens in the spring. And then every time the crescent moon appears, that's the first day of the next month of the next month and the next month. And it was just purely observational. So this is, we're just going to continue the day on in August 12th, 3 BC, and the sun is going to set, and something interesting is going to happen, which is that you're going to see that the moon is going to appear, and the moon is a crescent. So Hebrew days actually start at sundown. I think, I don't know, but I think that's because that's when the moon appears. and so this is the Hebrew day that is starting now at sunset has a crescent moon, so this is the first day of that month. The first month began in March, second month began in April, third month began in May,

fourth month began in June, fifth month began in July, and this is the first day of the sixth month of the Jewish calendar in 3 BC. Which is the same day that the star? Well, no. We've been talking about Matthew. Is there anything that happened in the sixth month in the Gospel of Luke? In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to the city of Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man his name was Joseph in the house of David.

Everyone assumes that the sixth month is about, oh, that's the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, which is the line that you get. And yeah, it is the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, but it just says in the sixth month. That's how the Bible talks about days. It's the first day, second day. That's a time marker. And it just so happens to be the time marker

of where we're going in Luke. Separate book, we have that. In the sixth month, that's whenever the angel Gabriel visits Mary. And he tells her, greetings, oh favor, one, the Lord is with you. The last time you have that greeting, greetings, O mighty man of valor, the Lord of with you, that's Gideon. And the story of Gideon with that conversation with the prophet is that Gideon does not actually know that the Lord is literally with him. And that's the story of literally figuring that out, learning too late. And we have this same greeting. The Lord

is with you. And we also said, astrology matches up to a person at the time of their conception. And this is the same time where we're having this, and this is whenever Mary is being visited, in the six months. And it continues on, how will this be since I'm a virgin? The angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child will be born will be called Holy, the son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age, has also conceived a son. And this end, is the sixth month with her who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, I am a servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her. This is where we get to the Feast of Trump at September 11th. This is why I want to know about why this is a significant date, which is that sometime after August 12, 3BC, the angel visits Mary in Nazareth. He tells her that she will conceive. It doesn't tell her when it's going to happen. But something, this is a family show, I'm sorry, but something should have happened that month to Mary, which did not happen indicating that she did conceive, just as the angel said. And then the next thing that we know is that, okay, so Ernest Martin and Michael Heiser believe that Jesus was born at the Feast of Trumpet, September 11th, 3B,000.

BC, it's too significant. This is such a symbolically significant day. It's the Feast of trumpets. It's for the announcement of kings. It's all of that. It's not Jesus's birthday, but it is significant because the next thing we read, in those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah. So she's going from Nazareth, closer to Jerusalem, where her cousin Elizabeth is. The Feast of Trumpets is a Rosh Hashanah. It's a holiday. And Elizabeth's husband had a strange workplace accident,

and he's not doing so well. And this is an excuse to get out of town and go to the only person who would have some understanding of the awkward situation that Mary is in. Now, the time when Mary could have shown up to do that, would be September 11th, the first day of the seventh month, which is the Feast of Trumpets. So rather than being the day when Jesus is born, this definitely fits in with the time of

the annunciation of Elizabeth to Mary. And honestly, I think that kind of fits in with the trumpet, the whole announcing thing. Oh, I see. And so, yeah, September 11th is a significant day. It's, this would be the feast of the annunciation. It's not the act. actual day, but this would be the time when it was happening, September 11th. It was like the recognition of her being pregnant. Yes. And so that happens with Elizabeth, which is honestly, that's kind of miraculous too. You shouldn't know that early. Elizabeth wasn't, uh, she was filled with the Holy spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry. This isn't a, oh, we had a conversation. We know what's really going on. She knew. And so, yeah, there is a miracle there with it. So that's, that's my

theory on the Feast of Trumpets about how that matches him. So, It's Rosh Hashan. So that's about a month after. That's about a month after. Okay. So it's long enough for Mary. So the Holy Spirit shows up or the angel Gabriel shows up and says, but we're actually John the Baptist knows in the womb that Mary's pregnant with the Messiah.

Yeah. And this is why I like a lot of times I'll tell the story and people get disappointed. They're like, oh, I kind of like the miraculous story. I like it being a miraculous light. I like all that. This is really much more moving to me because it mixes. something that's purely miraculous and so I'm almost abstract. So it almost becomes not real about how, oh, it's a light and it guided. What does that even mean? I don't even know what that

means. And so it goes into the part of your mind that's like Lord of the Rings trivia and Star Wars knowledge. Like you know it, but it's not really real. Whereas the story that we have with the star being Jupiter and Venus and all that, it blurs the line. between something that's real and something that's, wait a minute, this is like winning the lottery five times in a row. Like, I didn't break any laws of physics by winning the lottery five times in a row, but what's going on here? Yeah. And so that's kind of the story of what we have. Now, Mary was from Nazareth. Elizabeth is in the hill country. That's by Judea. Joseph is from Bethlehem. And he's betrothed to Mary, but he hasn't heard her. Now, surprise Joseph your fiance your betrothed is pregnant and that's the next that you know we read that

mary stays in the area about three months to the point where she's probably showing a little bit which gets back to joseph and that's where we go to matthew uh now the birth of christ took place this way this is before the star okay so she shows up hangs out with her friend she knows she's She's pregnant, just in layman's terms. She's hanging out there for a couple months. He's not with her. Nope. And he doesn't know yet.

Yeah, and not very happy about it. Very understandably so. Yeah, but then he hears, oh, she's showing. Wait, what? Yeah. And he learns about this, and this is the time where he decides, okay, well, now I needs a divorce. He gets visited in a dream.

I'll just know, this is, I didn't plan to say this, but the gospel of Luke, we kind of know that Luke probably talked to Mary, because. because we have a lot of private things about Mary and the Gospel of Luke. Well, Matthew probably talked to Joseph because we're getting a lot of dreams that Joseph had. And so we got Joseph's perspective in Matthew, and we have Mary's perspective in Luke. And an angel comes to Joseph and tells him to definitely marry his betrothal with Mary. And so he does it. And he calls his name Jesus.

And then we have, in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Corrinos was governor of Syria and all went to be registered each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was the house and lineage of David to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. So I'll tell you about the census of Corrinus. There's controversy that why is everyone going to their hometown? Also, Joseph went up from Galilee, topographically.

If you're going from Galilee to Bethlehem, you're going up. You're climbing up. So that is kind of what we're talking about here. Joseph was from Bethlehem. He goes to Nazareth to Mary, Mary. And then he comes back. Now, why is he going? The census of Corinius is the issue.

issue and it's an apographing. The Romans had their taxation in two stages. First thing you did is you had a general tax assessment. How much money is there in this province? And two, you use that to decide how much money you're going to collect and then you outsource the actual collection. You give the authority to collect taxis to us. It's like Matthew, right? Who is the tax collection? People like Matthew, people like Zechias. That's the way you do it. So the first The first census is the tax assessment. Nobody cares. Do you know when your taxes are, when the assessor comes by your house to give you your property value?

No. But everybody knows April 15th, because that's the day you got to pay. The first census is actually mentioned. It's a bummer for Joseph at that point, though, because he's not married yet. And he doesn't have his kid yet, so he doesn't have those write-offs. Exactly. He has to register his betroth with the pregnant. I mean, that's a...

He needs a dependence. That's what, yeah. Exactly. Why do you think you need to go? Money, man. This is the most believable story all at the same time. Merit, we got to go home. We got to get you on the, like the taxman's coming. I need to file. We need to file soon. And that's what we're doing. Also, if you want to see how Cassius Dio, Roman history, book 52, section 28 to 29, he records a speech of Caesar Augustus explaining how he does his taxes. And he mentions assessing all of the things that produce value to create a, a, a baseline of taxation, which you then go out to others. Yeah. Yeah.

And the first census is mentioned in Luke, chapter 2 versus 2. The second census is mentioned in Acts 537. And this is the one that happened in 6 AD. It was a bad thing. It was a very controversial affair. It involved armed revolts. Whenever Gamaliel is giving his speech to why they should let the disciples go, He mentions Judas who rose up in the days of the census.

That's the second census, the one that they collected taxes and that made everybody mad. This is the same author of Luke and Acts. Luke, if he didn't forget the second census, he mentions both the first census and the second census. He knows what he's doing. And so both of these assessments are actually mentioned in scripture. And then, yeah, then they just go full Boston Tea Party. They're like, we're not paying our taxes. Exactly.

Now they lose, and that causes Archelaus to be banished. And we are actually told Josephus notes that whenever Archelaus is banished, Quirinius comes back. And he says that Judea, which had been kind of a client state, it was explicitly added to the province of Syria. And Quirinius came to Judea to rule Syria as a whole. Whereas in the first thing, he was governing from Syria. Whereas the second time, he's governing from Judea.

So, Caleb, if people are listening to, why do they, what does the census of Corrinus matter? It's an issue of dating. It's an issue of accuracy of the scripture. The assumption from a lot of scholars, starting, I think, with Emil Scherer in the 1800s, a German historian, they don't care whenever they find an error in the Bible. And it seems they actually like it. Emil Scherer, who assumes Luke was wrong because, ah, Corinius wasn't governor of Syria at this time. he's the one who also says Corinius was governor from 3 BC to 2 BC.

And so there are some people who want to find errors in the Bible, and they try to. And if you don't look very carefully, you can convince yourself for about 100 years that there's an error. And so, yeah, the issue about why the census is a thing is because a lot of times Christians do not need to be scared to say, I don't care if this has been standard for the last 150 years. you're wrong. It's all out there in the open, just waiting to be found. No, it's kind of silly to go to your hometown to pay taxes. It's not silly to show up to have a tax assessor, assess your property. You can go to Roman historians who talk about this, and it's all there. And so you can... You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet.

How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app

and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Find it. Yeah. Let's keep going. This is good. I have no idea.

I never knew there was two senses. I don't think I'd ever really talk about it. You're probably the most prepared person ever to come on our show. Well, yeah. Do you know how, do you know how it's like, hey, would you like to come into my van out in the wilderness? You know, out in the woods? I can show you the star of Bethlehem. Everybody's like, please.

Like, never mind. That's cool. Bye. Pat, pat, go away. I don't know. Those guys are interesting. Thank you. I'm one of those guys.

I'm one of those guys. That guy's got some stories about Bigfoot. Let me tell you. Yeah. First census mentioned in Luke 2, second census mentioned Acts 537. That's just how they collected taxes. This is a normal thing. So assessment and then collection.

The assessment happened in 2 to 3 BC when Herod is still a client king. So when was Jesus born? Right. I don't think it's September 11th, the first time it is the first time I'm ever sharing this. So we have a mid-August date of conception, a time around then. the Magi visit on June 17th to BC. Whenever Joseph and Mary go to present Jesus to the temple, they give an offering of two turtle doves,

which is a poor offering. So I don't think that the Magi have actually showed up by the time that they're going to present Jesus at 40 days old. They don't have the gold. They don't have the gold yet. Yeah. Also, we get an indication, Joseph's a carpenter. Why didn't he have a cradle ready?

I mean, I can't prove it. I think Jesus came a little early. And so they didn't have any room in the inn. That word in, too. It doesn't mean hotel. It means place where you live. So in my father's house, there are many rooms. It's the same word that Matthew 2 uses.

And that's the place where you live. So they placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the place where you live, as opposed to the place where you cook or the place where you, you know, keep you're stable. So, yeah, I think that's a comment on his poverty, not the fact that they were staying in a hotel. Okay. And so, yeah, they're staying at Joseph's home. And so 40 days, I think my best estimation of when Jesus was born is May 8th, 2BC.

And what that does is that means that that is 40 days before June 17th, 2BC. And so Joseph and Mary go to the temple. the magi go to Herod and they both come back together at the same night arriving at the same place on June 17th 2bc that would be what would happen

if May 8th is the date based on my estes I can't prove it but that is my best guess for when he was born what's the jury out there think he made a good argument for May 8th

yeah I think we get hung up on dates and there's a lot of in This time of year, people get a little hot and testy in the blurry verse about Christmas and dates. And Jesus was when he was born versus when it's celebrated. But that's, it's a. So I'm about to give you, so the last, the thing I want to close on is kind of dates. And today is, this is the year 2020. Like any good man with a box full of books.

It's right. Let's talk about dates. It is 2025 AD. It's about to be 2026 AD. and AD is a Latin abbreviation. It stands for Anno Domini, Nostri, Jesus Christi. This datum system became standard because there was a monk named Dionysus Exegius. He was a monk in modern-day Romania, and in 525, Passover is based on the position of the sun and the moon, and it's the Hebrew calendar.

By this time, they're very Roman. They're using a Julian calendar. and that doesn't match up with the Hebrew calendar, and they need to know the number, the month and day of Easter, for several hundred years. And you just had to do it mathematically. You had to just put it all out.

And Dionysius Xegius was tasked with doing this. He only had a few more days on the list that was made for him, and he had to make a new one. The standard way to count the years was based on the reign of Diocletian, who was a Roman emperor who made, made a lot of huge reforms in the Roman empires. He was a big deal, but he was also a persecutor Christians. And Dionysus, he doesn't like that fact. You're like, no, I'm not going to count my years from him. Well, how do you do it? Do you do the year of the founding of Rome? Do you do it the Olympiad? Like, how do you count days?

Like, how do you? I'll tell you what I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it based on our Lord. we're going to go anno domini nosti yesu christi um now in a letter he claims that this is the year of the incarnation of our lord and so he's like oh i did it you know i did it based on the year of the incarnation of our lord but he doesn't do any research he just says it he doesn't do any calculations but the problem is if if he wanted to do it like from the year of the life like when Jesus was born, the Latin would be anovete yesu Christi, like the year of the life of Jesus Christ. That's not what he did. He did anno-dominian, Nostri, Jesus Christi, year, dominion, our Jesus Christ. This is an old style year of the king. So, you know, the year of the king, you know, whenever,

I think in, you know, in the 15th year of Tiberia Caesar is whenever John the Baptist starts That doesn't mean Tiberius Caesar is 15 years old. It means that he's been reigning for 15 years. And this is where things get interesting because this is about Herod the Great. Herod the Great was the last person to hold the title of King of the Jews. The Roman Senate gave him that title. The Persians had come in and they had installed their own king in Judeo. The Romans didn't like that.

So then we have this Iduman who's kind of Jewish. He's a convert. We'll make him king. He will take away this kingdom. from the Persians, who's their big enemy to the east, and they give him the title of King of the Jews. He conquers Judea. He becomes King of the Jews, and he died in 1 BC, the eclipse of Herod on June 10th. He died sometime shortly thereafter, and the remainder of that year is the accession year. It's still the year of Herod, even though Herod's already dead. The next year will be the first year,

of the next king. But if you read Josephus, Herod made Caesar Augustus the executor of his will, which means that after he had changed all of his will like five or six times, doesn't know who he's given away to. He names Herod, he names Caesar as the judge of who gets everything. And all of Herod's family sails to Rome, trying to get this kingdom. And Caesar gives it to no one. He makes Archelaus an ethnarch. It's the ruler over the people. And he also gives Philip the Tetrarch and Herod Antipus. He makes them tetrarchs are ruler of part. And Herod says that he would give the kingdom to Archelaus, but only if he rendered himself worthy of that dignity. So the ruling of Caesar is if you render yourself worthy of the title of King of the Jews,

then you'll become king of the Jews. But none of you are getting it now. And so let's... It's like a trial period. It's a trial period. Archelaus failed that trial period whenever the tax thing went really bad. And so no one is king of the Jews. And there is no king of the Jews ever until on Friday, April 3rd, 33 AD, which is Good Friday,

Pontius Pilate sat in judgment over Jesus and he was an emissary of Tiberius Caesar. He found no guilt in Jesus for this crime that he was being accused of, even though he's accused of crimes against Caesar. He's accused of making himself a king. Pilate found him to be worthy to be released, even though Jesus affirmed to him that he was a king. And you can read in John 19, 14 through 16, now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, behold, your king. They cried out, away with him, away with him.

crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? And the chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar. They basically, no, you're in charge, Caesar's in charge. We have, and so they delivered him to be crucified. Jesus went out, bearing his own cross, and they crucified and they crucifize him with two others. And Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews, but rather, this man said, I am king of the Jews. And Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written. In other words, no, this is your king, whether you like it or not.

Now, that inscription, that means that Jesus is the last king of the Jews. And that inscription is very, very important because it means that Jesus is not only the heir of David, which you can see in Matthew 1 to 17, he is the proper legal recipient of Herod's throne. It's the last king of the Jews. And today, the entire world measures time according to the beginning of his reign. 1B.C. was the last year of Herod. 1.A.D. is the first year of the next king who is Jesus Christ. And there are no plans to end this count of the year of the dominion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But that also means something very interesting in a way. And this is where things get a little blurry. And you see that this is, oh, wait, this is a little stranger. The angel told Mary, he will be great and will be called some of the most high. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. There's no stopping 2025, 2026, it's still going. That literally came true.

And it's the same thing that was promised in Isaiah, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from the time. from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. No one declared that this is our official timekeeping. It just happened. And it happened because a monk said, you know what, I don't want to count by dementia.

He didn't even know, he couldn't even describe it right. But now the entire world counts their dates based on the year of the king based on Jesus Christ. and it was predicted by an angel to marry 20, you know, 2,000, 25 years ago, yeah. So that's the last chronology thing that I guess I'll present. So yeah, that is my explanation

of how the star of the Magi works and how it tells us what's going on even now. So recap this, though, so we've gone long. So we have 2B.C.? Is that when we see that? August 12th, 3 BC. 3 BC, we see the coming together of Venus and Jupiter in this event that happens for an hour and a half.

Hour and a half. Middle of the night, but the Babylonians are up and watching. And 10 months later, you have... The same conjunctant, Jupiter and Venus coming together even closer, visible even longer, and everybody can see it. And it falls to the earth, and it just happens to lead the Magi to the House of Jesus. So between, in those 10 months, we have... have the journey of the magic.

We always say three kings is not, that is because of three gifts, I would assume, right? It happens with Isaiah. That, we'll talk about it later, but yeah, they're called three kings. So they, they take, they don't take 10 months to get there, right? Because it's maybe a three or four month journey is what you'd sort of surmised, right? Maybe they just took the slow road and took five, six months or just. Probably talked about it for a while. Yeah.

Like, wait a minute, you know, looking it over. But they arrive at a time, there's a big deal. there in Jerusalem. There's a bunch of hubbub. He comes to Herod. Herod secretly calls him in because they're astrologers. Yeah. They give them what they know about this thing. Do they know, that's what I wanted to ask you. Do they, why do they believe it's significant? We talked about this being like not like a one in a million type of event, but maybe once in a millennia. And they, how do they tie this to, in your mind, maybe we covered this or maybe I don't remember, but why do you think they think they need to go? I'll tell you, if, you,

then the next time we talk about precisely why. But the short version is, it's pure astrology. They're not like, oh, we're going to look back at Daniel. They are not experts in the law of Moses and the prophets. Because if they were, they would know that they need to go to Bethlehem. They didn't know that they needed to go to Bethlehem. They just went to the capital city and just start asking everybody. And so the thing that they saw in the sky and what they interpreted from that event on August 12, 3 BC, was so significant to them that they didn't really know what was going on, but they knew it was significant enough that we want to be on record as serving this king.

There are Roman historians. Soutonius is one. And he's talking about, I can't remember its life of Vespation or something. But at the time of the Jewish revolt, he notes that it had long been held in the east that men coming from Judea would rule the world. Hmm. Okay, so that's what I was curious about. So they're like, there's this cultural, they've got stuff within their cultural world. Yeah, that's kind of a first question.

Something significant is coming from Judea. Exactly. Now, I'll give you, this is kind of the ancient thing. The Romans, the astrology was foreign. They didn't like it, although there are Romans who did it. They definitely got into it and it was a thing. But the Roman way to understand messages from the gods was Augre, which is the flight of birds. Like understanding the flights and the sounds of birds.

There's a story about how Rome is founded, which is that, you know, 12 vultures landed in this. There were weird ways of kind of. That would be hard for the birds aren't real folks that are in the camp. Yeah. There were weird ways to understand omens, but the standard way coming from Babylon in the east was astrology. That's what you do. The Oracle of Delphi is another big one with Greeks. You don't exactly know what was going on there, but that's one way.

Romans had their way. And so there's a little like elbows competition, but it's definitely a thing. Astrology is definitely a thing. Everybody knows about it. And that was significant enough for them. to come into Jerusalem and start talking about this. Yeah. It's like we know it's coming.

I don't really know the details, but we have like this oral history of something that's going down. Do we know, he said this is a rare event, right? Do you have any history of the last time that those stars came together? Is there anything that happened on that date? Not that I know of. I mean, the thing is, is Jupiter, this is where we can, Jupiter basically stays in one zodiac constellation and then it moves to the next one.

And so it takes 12 years to go around. Venus kind of stays closer to the sun. And so what that really means is that Jupiter and Venus have a conjunction just about every year. Sometimes it's as close as nine months. Sometimes it's as far as far as 17 months. But they cross each other all the time. The question is how close they cross together. the closer they are to the sun, which means the less visible they are, the more common that happens.

Whereas when they're super far out, that gives you a larger range of how far apart they can be. And so the best estimate I've come up with is about once in a hundred years was the first one, but once in a thousand years is the second. It is a rare event, but it is the, but no matter, how rare it is, nothing's going to tell you, go to Jerusalem. Yeah, exactly. You've got to have the background astrological understanding that motivates things. And so that's the thing that actually pushes them to Jerusalem.

And how do you think they viewed compared to modern Christians and their understanding of stars and how we just sort of stay away from it completely because it feels taboo and weird and New Age? where are you at and what do you think the ancients felt about it? So the ancients, the Bible never, and I will talk about this in detail and if we're able to talk again. Yeah, we are. But I will tell you this, which is that the Bible never says astrology is fake. The law of Moses says, do not inquire of the stars, do not bow down and do not serve them. Why?

Because you're wasting your time? No. Because I will speak to you and I am the Lord. That's the attitude that the Bible puts to it, which is that, you know, the stars are made for signs and for seasons. Oh, yeah, there's something. But the idea, and this is kind of the competition of the other gods, which it's not that the other gods don't exist. The Bible talks about them all the time. The message is, don't listen to them because I am speaking to you.

That is the way that the Bible approaches it. It's not that there's nothing there. Yeah, it's to me, it's like when we talked before, you know, previously on other episodes about like the idea that like the Bible doesn't say don't participate in necromancy or sorcery or mediums because it's fake. It's probably because it's real. But we're just, you're looking at it's in the same way I think of like if you extrapolate to now, it's the same way with like psychedelics.

It's like you are, it's real and it works and you're going to enter, you're encountering things. You're not supposed to you're jumping the fence, right? And here's how I want to operate with, with. humanity as God. And here's some other ways you can interact with other entities and other things that are bad. It's not because it's fake or isn't real. It's actually probably because it is real. Don't do it. Right? You know, I think that's... I mean, look at it this way. Whenever Saul does his necromancy with the medium of Indoor, and the medium of Indoor looks into whatever she was looking into and gets knowledge about Saul that she did not have before she looked there. She was

seeing something. But he does this ceremony and Samuel comes up. He's like, what are you doing? Like, why have you disturbed me? He's like, well, I haven't heard anything from me and I really need to know what's kind of going on. And Samuel goes, it's exactly what I told you before. And I got no good news for you, man. Go away. And that's the end. And so Saul didn't need to do that. All he needed to do was listen the first time. And so whenever the Magi or using, astrology and they're doing like, oh my gosh, gosh, the king. Open the book, Bethlehem. That's where, Bethlehem. Or listen to this prophet who I have raised up from Zachari and Elizabeth. He will tell you who I'm talking about. I think I almost think of it too low like Caleb in another

way as well. It's like for those that are unbelievers, God still is announcing his son. It's kind of like, to me it's not unlike Tom Doyle and Muslims getting dreams about Jesus. It's like he's still king. And just because you are not a believer, doesn't mean he's going to proclaim his kingdom or himself as the Messiah to you. Like there's this interesting interplay where you have these natural things that God is using to announce this supernatural, this, the coming of his son. And it's not just for the Jews, right? And it's not just for Israel at this point. It's for the Lord God of heaven and earth.

He'll talk to you how he wants to talk to you. for all nations, right? But he's like, I'm going to talk to you this way. You know, I know you're doing all this stuff, but let me show you something because I need you to be there to meet my son, like who is. And they worship him. Yeah. Interesting.

We don't get to like the backstory and these guys. They go back and they're like, man, I've seen the Messiah. You know, I follow Jesus. Yeah, they knew right away. So I'll give you, to give you an idea of just how much more I have sitting in my head, there is a story in First Kings, which is that Solomon. He builds ships at Ebion Gieser, I think, which is basically the port on the Red Sea, the southern part of Israel. And he gets the sailors from Hiram of Tyre, so people who are experienced on the oceans.

Seaman. And he puts them on these ships, and they travel to Ophir, and they bring back gold, and he uses this gold to build the house of the Lord. The scriptural view of what is up there, it's not the vacuum of space. There's the heavens, and then above that is waters. So Solomon used Gentile servants who were familiar with that medium to get on things that he built and bring back gold so he could adorn the tabernacle of the Lord. With Jesus Christ, the waters up there. have these planets, these ships that are going back and forth.

And Gentile servants who are experienced with that realm see something that compels them to bring gold and frankestine and mur and give it to Jesus Christ who tabernacled among us. And so this is a constant theme of, oh, you thought that was cool back then. I'm about to do something even bigger. Oh, cool, you built a boat. I built a planet. And I'm going to bring people to me using the planets that I built. And that is the type of thing that is going on in script.

It's happening here. And it happens in so many other places. I love that. I mean, this kind of reminds me of like the phenomenon that happens in other countries. You know, in my music career, you go to another country and there's this artist that's massive there. Big in Japan. Big in Japan. Yeah.

But this is kind of thing. So like the stars are big in the Jews are not. They don't really, doesn't really do it for them, right? Yeah. And then. We're told in the sense of, yeah. But they don't really. But these guys are like, man, we've been hearing the rumors.

We've been watching the sky forever. Like this, this hobby is massive in our country. Oh, it's huge. It's huge. And so much so. And I think a lot of people arrive at Jesus Christ going through routes like ancient aliens. They start digging up the past. They start getting on these.

esoteric rabbit holes and they come back to Christ. And that's what we try to do here. It's like say, hey, look, all roads lead back to the king, right? You can't escape that. And if you actually aren't blinded by the information, you're gonna arrive at Jesus, no matter where, which road you take. And I think that's cool because I think that modern Christians,

we have a tendency to think that we sort of fundamentally look at everything. Like black and white, there's no other conversation happening other places and other countries. Yeah. And people can't find the truth if they don't have a certain road to the truth, completely paved. And May 8th is a pretty innocuous date. I was just for fun, looked up to see anything cool happen on May 8th.

VE Day, 1945, the Germans surrendered to the Allies. That's pretty interesting. Eradication of smallpox in 1980. Eruption of Mount Pele in 1902. First serving of Coca-Cola, 1886. And literally than that, maybe Sunny Liston was born that day if you're into boxing. It could be a moment. more ordinary day either, which I think is very much Jesus to be like, it's not, not that that is

anything, but it's sort of just makes sense. You're like, okay, he comes in a way where his, his earthly father is so broke, they're giving two doves for an offering that, you know, they live in abject poverty, he comes to a dirt floor, and actually in a manger, because there's no room inside the abode. It's spooky. There's nothing, there's nothing like direct. There's no, you know, flashing lights in the heavens, you know, like reading out. Like, it's not like a skywriter. So it's just, wait, did you, do you remember that thing that happened? Wait, that was weird.

Yeah, that's strange. And things like this happen over another great example. Whenever Paul is heading to Rome, this is a great example, how things get spooky and how you need to know about things that are old to know about how they're spooky. So he's on an island. They get shipwrecked. and he goes to pick up sticks and he gets, there's a snake that comes out of the thing

and it bites him in the arm. There is some pagan iconography of the rod of Cipolis, I think, which is, and it's the, or the cadmus or something. So that's something it's associated with mercury. And he doesn't die from the snake bite and, oh, he's, and they start to, you know, think that he's something else. At one point, Apollo, I think it's Apollo, they called Zeus and Paul, they called Mercury because he was the chief speaker.

So he has this reputation of being Mercury. And then whenever he sails into Rome, it says they were able to hitch a ride on a ship that was from Alexandria, and on the prow, it had the twin gods. And the twin gods, if you were in Rome and you had the twin gods, that would probably be Romulus and Remus. But if it's from Alexandria, that's probably the Gemini. twins, Castor and Pollux. And in astrology, Mercury is the ruler of Gemini.

And so he has a strong association with Gemini. And so whenever Paul is coming into Rome to preach about Jesus Christ, he's got all this spooky stuff in his background. Like, you know, people over in Greece were saying that he's Mercury. Like, you know, whenever he got shipwrecked, he actually got bit by a snake and he actually didn't get harm from that. You know, did you see the ship that he showed up on? It had the Gemini to. He was like, who is this guy?

This is a messenger. Okay, all that stuff is pagan. But it's a signal to the people who believe in all that pagan stuff. This is someone you need to be listening to because, hey, it's the Lord God. He's going to speak to you how he wishes. And so that's the plan that's aligning. Like the pagans are like, oh yeah, we got to listen to whoever's being born today. This is a big deal.

We got to listen to this guy. It's something, yeah, there is a lot going on there. But it is something of... Because Venus and Jupiter are lining between me would be a signal to the pagan world. Yeah, it means something. And the people who they are listening to are the ones who are telling them that this is significant. And so it's more of a thing of there is a consistent theme in scripture of God going to you where you are. Yeah.

In order to speak to you where you are. Using all things. Using all things that he wants to use. It's incredible. And so, yeah, this is an example of that. Well, from a lawyer's mindset, the Bible's validity becomes extremely boldproof. Yeah, it's like you see all of the dates, the number. everything aligns and the stories and the themes.

It's like you kind of have 4D vision on scripture that I think the average person just can't, the average critic can't see how aligned it is. You should read the Bible like a novel, not because it is a novel, but because there are things and ways of communicating that only exist in like a really good novel. I posted about this just like the other day on X,

but you know Jesus wept, John 11.35. Yeah. You know why he wept? It never says. Now the Jews are looking at it. Like, oh, well, look how much he loved Lazarus. Like, oh, wow.

But that doesn't make very much sense in the context of the story. We're told in the story that Jesus deliberately waited so that Lazarus would die. And he knows it's going to happen. It never tells you why Jesus wept. But in John 1134, Jesus asks, you know, where have you laid him? and the Jews, which is John's kind of words for the chief priest and Pharisees who are the rulers of Jerusalem, they say to him, Lord, come and see.

That verse in John 11, 34, is the only time in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John that the chief priest and Pharisees and Sadducees ever call Jesus Lord. They'll call him rabbi. They'll call him that man. They'll call him that man with a demon. They'll call him a Samaritan. They'll call him all other things, but they never call him Lord, which is a Greek word that's, you know, sir, you know, it's any way that you address superior. It also happens to be the word that the Septuagint chose to translate Yahweh. And so it's the only time that the chief priest call him Lord and call him by name.

And he weeps. And they don't even realize why he's weaving. They're like, oh, he loved Lazarus. No. Well, he did, but that's not why he's crying. Oh, yeah. He had things going on with Lazarus. And so, yeah, there are things that are underneath the surface of scripture everywhere.

And you can do it by careful. You can search and you can, oh, yeah, there's first census, Luke 2, second census, Acts 5. You can find those things and they're there. And things make sense. But then there's something much deeper that is all. going out through the background, which is much more subtle, it's much more sophisticated, and it's waiting to be discovered. I think to wrap this up, this Christmas episode, I think we go back to the Christmas story. We've been talking about as far as the idea of the Magi knowing in Luke 2-11,

it says, The angel said to them, fear not for behold, I bring you good news of great joy. That will be for all people. This is the star of Nativity, the Magi star, was not just for, for Israel, this was for all people. And that was a way that God was speaking that, as you said. I think it's just an important part as we approach Christmas in the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the most amazing thing that ever happened in the history of the world.

It's cool that this was for everyone, right? And this sign, particularly was for those in the East to realize God's ain't here with my son and he's coming. He's coming. What was predicted? There was, it was rumors all around it. And usually sometimes,

you're not famous in your own hometown. People don't know where you are. And then everyone else knows, dude, you know so-and-so in your hometown? Who? You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

And then, so for years, and then the whole, our timeline, you know, our calendar, everything is just based on that moment and then moving forward. And I wanted to ask you one last question about it.

Like, I didn't think, about there was some magical moon when people were conceived, but the conception was the big, seemed to be the big time in the ancient world when you were, when you started, when the magic, when the spark of life hit you. Actually, yeah. I mean, that is the... Not the day you come out, the day or...

The concept, the, we have medicalized a lot of things. Yeah. And so we talk about things very differently than ancients talk about them. but I don't think that we're becoming more accurate than them. We're just different. And we talk about things differently. But conception all the way back then, okay, no, that's the start of things. I'm just going to throw out, this isn't, I didn't write this book, you need to read C.S. Lewis

that discarded image. And he is, he's talking about the medieval, the way that medieval's viewed the world. but he can expose just how there's a different way to look at everything. And it doesn't make your world any less accurate. It doesn't make science inaccurate. But you just got to realize, oh, wait, there are more things going on than just matter and molecules. There's so much, there are different layers of reality that you need to pay attention to. And the God that we serve is the one who is the creator and really.

ruler of every single layer of reality and he can speak how he wishes. And that's something that I think is something that the star of Bethlehem and the star of the Magi and the star in the East definitely just shows. Thanks, Caleb. It took us to school. Yeah. That was awesome. Thank you. There's so much there. Go to www. jkalebjones.com. That's my blog. And if you want to see a video of this, which basically shows the first half, you can go to www. www.com. We're probably going to try to convince you to write a book and work. Let's do it. And we'll help you.

We'll help you get it out there. Yes. All right. Let's do it. Because there's so much information here. And I think this is great because I think a lot of people come to our podcast from all those different roads. A lot of people, we get endless emails.

I was in the new age. I was practicing all kinds of stuff. But for some reason, they come in here and the way the conversations go, people find Christ. And so thank you for championing that effort and showing that like everyone knew Jesus was coming. It was the, it was the, it was the event. You know, it was the Super Bowl of the ancient world that everyone knew it was going down. And I was to say this too, like, if everyone listening, you know, from blurry creatures, Merry Christmas. Yeah.

You know, regardless of the date and that people argue about this, I think amazing thing about this time of year is that the world pauses. to celebrate the arrival of the king. Well, there's a lot of commercializations, other things that happen around Christmas. Really, the world stops. And, you know, it's always that old thing from the 80s and 90s. Jesus is the reason for the season.

I think we had that. It truly is. And I just, you know, I hope, as Clark Griswold said, and one of the best Christmas movies all times, that the most enduring traditions of the season are best enjoyed in the warm embrace of Kith and Ken.

And Merry Christmas out there, everybody. That's right.