Yeru
You hardly have any insight at all, Yeru. With the exception of this one point, I’m disregarding the rest of your stuff as so much blather ... not even worthy of a response.
The star had nothing and HEROD had EVERYTHING to do with the death of those innocents.
The way it really was:
Satan knew the Magi’s trade. He was not ignorant of the fact that when the Magi would witness something really great or spectacular in the heavens that, being astrologers, these ones would interpret such a happening as an indicator that somebody, somewhere, had been born destined to become someone great, such as a “king”. The mere appearance of the “star” told them that much, and that’s what supplied them the reason for asking: “Where is the one born king?” (Matthew 2:2) But, apparently, how they knew that the one born was to become king of the “Jews” was that the “star” lay off in the direction of Israel. Thus the “star” served as a pointer, so as to identify the particular nationality of the new-born “king”. Naturally these star-gazers would then head out for Jerusalem, because of obvious reasons … all quite in accord with Satan’s plan of having Jesus killed while still a young child.
Of course Satan, even before he caused the “star” to appear, knew quite a lot about King Herod’s disposition. He knew that Herod would try to stamp out any threat to his throne. That being the case, and because Satan desperately wanted Jesus dead, then all Satan had to do was to in some way bring it to Herod’s attention that such a “king” had been born. His way of accomplishing that? By using a trick “star”, that’s how! Of course, at first the Magi themselves didn’t know that they were being used. What scheming, what deceit, that was on the part of Satan. Satan knew that the Magi would wind up in Jerusalem inquiring about this “one born king of the Jews”. He also knew that any talk circulating around town regarding ANYONE having been so born would eventually come to the attention of King Herod. So, what a perfect scheme to make an attempt on Jesus’ life. So while it’s true that Herod learned from prophetic Scripture (via the chief priests and scribes) the exact town in which the “child” was to be born, he would have never made such an inquiry had the Magi not come into Jerusalem asking such an anger-arousing question. And likewise, the Magi would never have come into Jerusalem to begin with had the “star” not made an appearance.
Insofar as the question of whether or not the star ‘walked’ the Magi from the outskirts of Jerusalem on into Bethlehem, a critical analysis of Matthew chapter 2, particularly verses 9 and 10, suggests that this absolutely didn’t happen … that when the Magi got to Bethlehem the “star” had arrived much, much earlier than they did. Apparently, it seems, when the star disappeared after their initial brief encounter with it, it was later (meaning at the time they saw it again in Bethlehem) construed by them as having right then gone directly to Bethlehem. Because of having completely lost touch with the star until having seen it once again in Bethlehem the account reads: “ On seeing the star they rejoiced very much indeed.” It’s like they were in effect saying: "Ohhhhhhh, so it was HERE ... to Bethlehem ... where you ran off to after we had seen you previously!"
Just how brief was their initial encounter with the Star of Bethlehem? In order to accomplish the purpose for which Satan caused it to shine to begin with, it didn’t need to remain visible until they got to Jerusalem. By merely having appeared (however brief a period it may have actually proved to be) the “star” had succeeded in pointing the Magi in the right direction so that they would come into contact with jealous Herod, exactly as Satan intended. Once that much had been accomplished, the scheme of Satan for having Jesus put to death was well on its way to completion …or so Satan thought. Due to the fact that the Magi, although they knew the town to go to in their search for the child, they didn’t know which house Jesus would be in once they got there. But of course Satan caused the “star” to point that out to them too. Apparently, according to the Magi’s own reasoning, it looked to them that after it had so mysteriously disappeared from sight following their very first encounter with it, the “star” went directly to Bethlehem “until it came to a stop above where the young child was”. Two rather brief encounters with the “star” was ALL that it took to accomplish what Satan had set out to do in the beginning. And, had God Himself not entered the picture so as to defeat the purpose of the “star”, Jesus would have been put to death by Herod’s orders and God’s purpose regarding the Messiah would have been thwarted.
It will be noticed that in the above paragraph I said, “according to the Magi’s reasoning”. And this is a most important thing not to miss. If one will but consider the account close enough the point I made can be discerned as being the case. And LIKEWISE, with regards to that object being called a “star” we see that such was ONLY according to the impressions drawn by the Magi themselves. So, when they said, “we saw his star” … they were merely referring to it as a “star” because it appeared as a bright object in the night sky where one would as a rule observe actual stars. And so, when we read in verse 9 these words: “When they had heard the king, they went their way; and look! the star they had seen, etc.” … this is not the Bible-writer Matthew calling the object a star. What the reader is being presented with here is Matthew’s having accounted for the way the object impressed the Magi. In other words it seemed to resemble a star to them, rather than the Bible itself attesting that it was an actual star.
So NO, Yeru, the Bible itself doesn’t identify the object as being a real star as you claim.
Friday
