Article "Star of Bethlehem"

 In July 2025, in search of some place to expand awareness of this that I have been led to see and share with others, I found that the magizing known as The Mountain Astrologer had died and was reborn. That rebirth was in June 2025. So, the timing seemed to be interesting. I found a contact email and sent in a sent in a rather informal statement about why I was contacting them, as I had an article that I felt astroglers would be interested in knowing about. I asked what the guidelines were for article submission.

That resulted in a series of exchanges with the man who has brought The Mountain Astrologer back to life, Frank Clifford. He intitially said it sounded amazing, enticing me to send a completed article with picture files, saying it would be several weeks before I would be contacted about contracts and release of rights. A day later (not weeks) Frank told me he had read the article and said it was not something The Mountain Astrologer would be interested in. He made suggestions for pandering it to other astrological organizations; but I see no need to go that route.

In other efforts to search for astrology groups to make a presentation to and respond to questions, I find the Internet is dregded in 'new wave' astrologers that are nothing like those I met in the late 1970s and developed relationships with. While there might still be some places like I used to know and was able to reach out to in the past, I see this as a gross failure to see astrology as a divine tool, created by Yahweh, and it only works when in the hands of those souls that connect with Him. Astrology has become a money grubbing business that rejects religion, even though Arabic, Kabbalic, and Hindu astrology all grew from solid religious roots.

For that reason, I am posting the article Frank Clifford rejected as not important enough for astrologers to read and consider, even if it is to attack it and spit upon it. The Star of Bethlehem is the Sun the Earth revolves around, not some mystery light that led Magin on camels at night. Everything written in divine Scripture about the birth of Jesus (Matthew and Luke) is true, but misunderstood because of human mental deficiencies.

Because the article was limited to 3,000 words, I did not add some other important truths that I missed, when I wrote the book The Star of Bethlehem: The Timing of the Life of Jesus. Since I have no word limits to apply, I will add that to the end of this article. Please keep in mind that a basic understanding of astrology is a prerequisite for fully grasping the charts displayed as evidence. Still, one has to have an ability to accept the birth of Jesus as a divine promise delivered, told of only in divine books of the Holy Bible. If anyone has a problem seeing both together, then one is blinded by selfishness.

Star of Bethlehem

In October 2016, as I sat alone in a church nave reading the lessons for that Sunday morning, my mind turned to the story of the Magi.  From out the blue came a dawning that the Magi were astrologers and the star they saw was not some mysterious light but the Sun.  I realized what led them to travel to Jerusalem for an expected birth was a forecast chart that had to be so amazing that travel arrangements would have been made well before that birth.

Having been raised Christian as a child, becoming unchurched prior to adulthood, I had studied metaphysics in my twenties, becoming a certified astrologer (AFA) before I was forty.  As a devout believer in God and a devout believer God creating tools for mankind to be led by, I had never let those two paths cross.  I sang Christmas songs about a holy night and watched A Charlie Brown Christmas on television, listening to Linus recite the Annunciation to the Shepherds.  I believed in a star being important, but I knew it was not a conjunction of planets.  I once had the idea that Jesus might have been a Pisces, so I made a feeble attempt to create a natal chart based on that.  The result was so pitiful I let it be a lesson not to go there again.

When I had that epiphany that the star of Bethlehem was the Sun, I began rereading the Christmas stories, told in Matthew 2 and Luke 2.  Only one reference of nighttime is there.  When the Magi met with Herod, there was nothing stated that the Magi followed a mystery star, which would have been equally visible to the king.  Herod told the astrologers the prophesied birthplace, then secretly asked the Magi to tell him the time of birth for the “king of the Jews.”  To worship a newborn meant to anoint him as the promised Messiah, with a tiny gold crown, perfumed incense to purify the surroundings, and sacred oil to be rubbed on his forehead.

In Luke, it dawned on me that shepherds are children and children do not watch over sheep when it is dark, with unseen predators about.  This means the Jewish clock states when night and day begin and end.  Night begins at 6:00 PM, but it is not always dark at that time.  When Joseph took pregnant Mary to Bethlehem to register for a commanded census, they would not have traveled that far from Nazareth without another reason to be in the area.  That would be festival time.  Then, pilgrims would take up all available rooms at all inns.  Because Mary was expected to give birth soon, Jospeh would have taken her to Bethlehem on a donkey, which he stabled after they got there.  Planning to register a new baby at the same time, that plan did not materialize.  After registering, Mary’s water broke, and she needed midwives to assist her first childbirth.  When asked, “Where are you staying?”  Joseph told them to go to the stable, where he had paid to board his donkey. 

To see the transition from a cave stable to a house, Matthew said the Magi came there to meet mother and child.  That says the festival was over and the pilgrims had checked out, going home.  This view of pilgrims flocking to Jerusalem and the surrounding areas told me that the Magi, knowing the birth date, would have been to Jerusalem before the birth; but having so many people filling the city would make the Roman guards prohibit any non-Jews from entering, forcing them to wait until the Passover-to-Shavuot period was over.  The Magi were most likely descendants of exiled Jews in Babylon, but no longer practitioners of that religion; so, they did not know where the Messiah’s birth was prophesied.  That meant the Magi expected Herod to be the father of the child they foresaw to become “king of the Jews.”

The element of an angel appearing, both to the shepherds and the Magi, goes along with an angel appearing to Zachariah (John the Baptist’s father) and Gabriel to Mary.  This is then saying this birth was of divine plan.  While not written, one could assume the Magi were angelically led to realize an amazing forecasting chart was relative to a birth in Judea, not Babylon (were the same basic alignments would be displayed).  They could have been told to get approval to go west and anoint the Messiah.  All of that says God (I call Him Yahweh) orchestrated everything, with nothing happening by chance.

Similarly, I was inspired to come to certain realizations that had to be true.  First, Yahweh’s Son would be born during the day, not at night.  Jesus is quoted as saying, “If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.  But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him” (John 11:9-10, NASB1995).  Second, Yahweh’s Son would not be born in the dead of winter (the December 25 date is linked to the Winter Solstice), but in the spring, when new life abounds.  The Passover festival is the beginning of spring, with Pentecost at the end of spring.  Third, Yahweh’s Son would be born when the Sun is high in the sky, when the light of life to the earth is most visible.  Finally, Yahweh’s Son would be born on a Sabbath, which is the day of the week that has been blessed as holy.  These prerequisites had to match the facts of Scripture.

This rush of sudden awareness then made it obvious to me how little I knew.  I needed to know the year.  I needed to know Hebrew calendars; and I needed to mesh all that with Biblical records.  That meant going to the PC and checking the Internet for resources.  Quickly I found an abstract of a publication by Gerard Gertoux, entitled Herod the Great and Jesus: Chronological, Historical and Archeological Evidence.  In that I found a most valuable timeline, which I reconstructed and added elements to.  Key was the times of censuses and the times of building Herod’s Temple.  When focusing and adjusting was done, relative to some questions scholars have about seeming contradictions found between Scripture and historical record, all of that became explainable.  From this source, I was able to determine that the birth year was 9 BC.

This picture was not sent with the article submitted, due to it being the published property of Gerard Gertoux, which I used to determine a birth year.

While that assessment was preliminary and in need of verification, I realized I needed to find a way to see the Hebrew calendar for 9 BC and verify what actual dates aligned with Passover and Pentecost.  I found the website offered by the Church of God Study Forum (cgsf.com) allowed easy searches of BC years, which were shown as Hebrew months and dates, alongside a Roman calendar.  That website offered the Sabbath before Pentecost to be 5 Sivan, which was May 25 on the Roman calendar.  Since another website (a Harvard University calendar converter program – fourmilab.com) seemed to contradict this, I found Astrodienst (astro.om) offers a Swiss ephemeris that I used to confirm the dates of cgsf.com as accurate.  By using Wikipedia’s article “Hebrew calendar,” I was able to see the Gospels refer to the Jewish clock and ecclesiastical numbering of month (not civil).

To confirm that May 25, 9 BC would have allowed the shepherds daylight by which to bring in their flocks and place them in a sheepfold “by night,” still having enough light to meet an angel and then go into Bethlehem and find out which stable a newborn baby could be found, and it still be light enough to go home for dinner and sleep, I Googled sunset for May 25, 9 BC.  AI responded 6:51 PM.  From the website DateandTime, a search of ancient times found a graph that not only listed sunset, but additional variations of twilight, one being civil twilight.  That is defined as “A period of time after sunset or before sunrise when the sun is below the horizon, but there is still enough light for most outdoor activities without artificial illumination. Specifically, it occurs when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon” (AI Overview).  This says the shepherds would have been able to do normal outdoor activities until 7:29 PM, well into the evening watch “by night” of the Jewish clock.

Again, from my first being led down this path and immediately searching for something more to go by, I spent no more than a couple of days researching before I was ready to let my computer’s astrology program cast a chart.  The data for entry I had surmised was:

                                Name: Jesus

                                Date: May 25, -008 [the Julian Date for 9 BC]

                                Time: 11:15 AM

                                Place: Bethlehem, Israel

The result was phenomenal.  I did not know what to expect, but the chart was clearly most unique and one that a Magi would see and gasp.  It screams it is a special alignment that must be seen as reflecting a most important individual (as a natal chart).  Before I show you the whole chart, I want to adjust it to only presenting the traditional planets and luminaries, as this would be what the Magi would have calculated.  It is this:

My purpose here is not to interpret this chart, but to simply display this as a most powerful T-square configuration.  A native with only three planets, lights, or points making this formation is significant. This chart features five orbs with three points.  The Ascendant, Midheaven, and Descendant are points of Cardinal drive, connecting the Fixed determination of Leo, Taurus, and Aquarius. To those point are clung Sun, Mercury, Venus (trple conjunction in the 10th house), a 12th house Mars, and a 7th house Saturn. Only the Moon and Jupiter are aprat from this 'Tabernacle' that drapes over this native.

Seeing this, let me now add the modern planets (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) to this chart.  The result is this, with the time adjusted to 11:20 AM:

Notice it get bolder? 

This is because Pluto joins the Mars-Ascendant conjunction in the 1^st house, while Uranus becomes the 7^th House planet conjunct the Descendant, with the change in time placing Saturn in the 6^th house, all closely conjoined.  Neptune falls into the 3^rd house, at a degree in Libra that trines the Uranus, Saturn, Descendant conjunction, while making a sextile aspect with the Mars, Pluto, Ascendant conjunction.

While this is completely amazing to me, this is where the angel appearing to the shepherds, saying “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:11, NIV).  That says the birth took place while the shepherds were in the fields watching their flocks by day.  By the time they brought their flocks back for safekeeping overnight (with it still light outside), Luke wrote, “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God” (Luke 2:13, NIV).  Here, the Greek words that are translated as “a great company of the heavenly host” can equally state, “an assembly of celestial luminaries belonging to the sky.”  Here is a chart cast for that “appearance” that symbolically “praises God.”

I have inverted this chart to display the western horizon to the left.  I have used the time of 6:15 PM, which is “by night” according to the Jewish clock.  That time shows the triple conjunction of Mercury, Sun, and Venus in the 12^th house, still forming a T-square with Mars and Saturn.  The Moon would have been visible overhead, along with Mars.  This would then reflect the “heavenly host” that sang, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14, NIV).  Rather than singing praise, the planets and luminaries symbolize praise that is the plan of Almighty Yahweh, who sent His Son Jesus as promised.

Still, when one returns to the text of Matthew, after the Magi have been sent to find the child in Bethlehem, one reads, “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was” (Matthew 2:9, NIV).  This now says to me how the Magi had used coordinates for Jerusalem, but when they reached Bethlehem, they calculated those slightly different coordinates, while freezing the “star” in a new chart (like a horary chart or transit chart with a new location).  They would have done that knowing they were late and missed the birth; so, they would want to see if a new chart would indicate changes.  Matthew then wrote, “When they saw the star, they were overjoyed” (Matthew 2:10, NIV).  That excitement would be because of seeing this change:

This shows the same basic alignment, but the Moon had joined with conjunction of Mars, Pluto, and the Ascendant.  When “star” is defined most basically as “a natural luminous body visible in the sky especially at night” or “a planet or a configuration of the planets that is held in astrology to influence one's destiny or fortune” (Merriam-Webster), this can include the Moon.  When they were “overjoyed” at seeing this “star,” Matthew then tells, “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11, NIV).  The reference to seeing “the child with his mother” is then a confirmation of what had “overjoyed” them in a newly cast chart.  The Moon was with Mars.

When I saw the significance of this natal chart, I was firmly convinced that this was the natal chart for Jesus.  I initially prepared slideshow presentations that were multiple 2-hour classes, held at Episcopal churches where my wife was the rector.  Because of the limited participation and a most important topic I felt should be shared, I transformed the presentations into the book The Star of Bethlehem: The Timing of the Life of Jesus (Katrina Pearls, 2020).

When doing presentations in Episcopal churches, I spent more time preparing the students to not be afraid of astrology than I did on how remarkable this astrological chart is.  As I wrote the book and my wife edited it, she commented that the book differed from the presentations.  I told her the tool that a birth chart represents is to match future events to that evolving native.  That led me to delve into the unknown years of Jesus, using apocryphal texts to fill in the blanks, before taking four Gospel stories and dovetailing them into one fluid whole, where the astrology allowed me to set dates and times to the events of Jesus’ ministry.  I had plans to write a second book that went deeply into the mechanics of astrology and astrological forecasting; but after beginning that I was called away (by the voice within).  I now leave that task for someone else.

I feel additional work is important to test and verify this groundbreaking news of Jesus’ birth data being discovered.  In my searches on the Internet, I have seen where some scholars of the past have given serious consideration to an 8 BC birth year (which could be a Julian number, since there is no year 0); but just the other day an unrelated search came up with AI Overview informing me that the general consensus of Jesus’ birth year is 5 BC.  I understand I have no credentials for making my opinion be taken as anything more than that.  The Christian world is happy celebrating the birth of Jesus in the dead of winter, singing songs at midnight on Christmas Eve.  Nobody wants to hear the star of Bethlehem is a very verifiable star, called the Sun.  So, testing what I offer astrologically is most important.

In that regard, let me present two event charts, which can be plotted as transit charts overlaying the natal chart of Jesus.  One is his death chart, with the other being his Ascension chart.  Both demand analysis of the Hebrew calendar that has Passover begin on a Sabbath, as stated in the Gospels.  Based on the timeline I adopted from Gerard Gertoux and the Hebrew calendar of the Church of God Study Forum, Jesus died on Wednesday at 3:00 PM, April 20, 29 AD, in Jerusalem.  Here is the event chart for that date of death and a makeshift transit chart:

In this event, a transiting triple conjunction of Venus, Mars, and Saturn (in Taurus) conjoins the natal Midheaven, Venus, Sun, and Mercury conjunction.   Transiting Jupiter has joined the natal conjunction of Uranus, Saturn and Descendant.  I see this as adding strength to this natal chart.

As for the event of Jesus’ Ascension, this again demands one realize this took place on Jesus’ Jewish birthday (5 Sivan), but because of the differences of a lunar and solar calendars, it is not a Solar return.  The transiting Sun is at 10° Gemini, rather than 1°.  Both birth and Ascension took place on a Sabbath before Pentecost Sunday.  Here are the charts:

Here, the event chart shows a stellum in Gemini, in the 10^th house.  Saturn, Sun, Mars, and Venus wrap around a true North Node.  In the transit chart, Saturn conjoins the natal Venus, Sun, and Mercury conjunction, while being in opposition to Pluto in Sagittarius. 

This, to me, makes sense of Acts 1:10-11, where it states, “They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”  The “two men dressed in white” are the Dioscuri, who are the Twins Castor and Pollux of the constellation Gemini.  They reflect the duality of Jesus, as mortal and eternal.

This is now added interesting information

After I published my book in September 2020, I returned to writing analyses of Biblical Scripture, following the schedule of readings in the Episcopal Lectionary. In May 2022, after the COVID19 scare had dwindled, I suffered a serious health issue, which lef me in a very weakened condition. As I recovered and attempted to return to my writing schedule, I was at the point of the schdule when the birth of John the Baptist was foretold (Luke 1:26-38, Advent 4), which was read in Episcopal churches on December 18, 2022. As I wrote in advance of those dates of reading, my helth and weakness had slowed me down to only a week or two prior to the coming reading Sunday. Thus, it was early December 2022 when I realized Luke 1 confirmed the accuracy of my theory.

This is what I found so amazing. Luke 1:26-27 states (NIV), "In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary." This was a statement about the sixth month of the Hebrew calendar, which is Elul. That numbering is ecclesiastical, not civil, meaning the first month is Nisan, which is begun by the Vernal Equinox, with Passover observed on the 14th-15th (the first full moon after the first new moon of spring). Thus, Elizabeth became pregnant in Nisan, so when Gabriel appeared to Mary in the sixth month (Elul), her relative (old and barren) had been pregnant "six months" (based on the Hebrew designations of months by number).

In verse 27 the word "virgin" is stated twice (as parthenon and parthenou). According to the Wiktionary article on the "Jewish astrology," the month Elul is related to the word betulah, which means "virgin" or "a young woman generally, who is sexually pure." Thus, the Latin zodiac equivalent is the sign of Virgo, which means "Virgin." This amazingly says Gabriel appeared to the "Virgin" Mary in the Hebrew and Latin signs (August-September to September-October, or August 22 – September 22) for the "Virgin."

Because the Latin zodiac equates to the Roman calendar, which becomes meshed with the Hebrew calendar for astrological charts to be computed, this says Gabriel appeard to Mary when she soon became pregnant with Jesus. The civil month Elul is considered the last month of the year and it is when the Jews recognize "the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur." Still, as the sixth month ecclesastically becomes a fixed point in timing the brith of John and Jesus.

With this making it known that Elizabeth became pregnant in Nisan, during a time when Zachariah was doing his illegular duties in the Temple (Herod's), prior to Passover, she would have become pregant (I am guessing) on Nisan 10. That is when the Passover lamb is taken to be inspected for perfection. Because the Hebrew calendar is lunar-based, this roughly means a nine-month pregnacy would produce childbirth around the tenth of Tevet, which is the equivalent Latin zodiac time of Capricorn. This means John the Baptist was the divinely prophesied birth that occurred after the Winter Solstice, with December 25 being early in the sign of Capricorn.

With that realized, seeing Mary became pregnant around the tenth of Elul, to add nine months to the sixth month, that equates to the Hebrew month of Sivan. I have calculated a birth date for Jesus as the day before Shavuot (Pentecost), which occurred in 9 BC on 6 Sivan. I see Jesus' Roman birthdate as May 25. The Jewish astrology for Sivan equals the Latin zodiac sign of Gemini. That confirms what I wrote a book about, without putting any of this confirmation in my book.