TWO VERY INTERESTING PHENOMENA

By Mark Berrier

TWO VERY INTERESTING PHENOMENA from Matthew's Gospel:

1. The Star of Bethlehem:

There is one obvious astronomical object, and only one, that fits with the account of the star of Bethlehem that Matthew 2:9 records—a comet with a long tail. Comets are known to appear suddenly and to seem to travel slowly across the night sky at a typical rate of 1-2 degrees per day. Matthew says that the star “stood over” the place where the baby Jesus lay. A long-tail comet with its head pointing downward can seem to point to a place on earth. This would dramatically fit with the description in Matthew of the star.

For millennia the Chinese kept close watch on comets and other heavenly phenomena. According to ancient Chinese records a spectacular comet with a very long tail appeared in 5 BC and was visible for over 70 days. This comet is the only one recorded between the period 20 BC and AD 10, according to ancient Chinese records. This comet fits uniquely with the birth of Christ, because Luke reveals that Quirinius was governor of Syria when Jesus was born. Quirinius was governor of Syria the first time from 6 BC to 4 BC. The Chinese were able to track the movements of the comet for 70 days, and the Magi would have been able to see it, too, since it began its journey “in the east,” just as Matthew said.

2. The amazing uniqueness of Matthew 1:

The genealogy of Jesus recorded in Matthew 1:1-11, from Abraham to the Exile in Babylon, is amazing. Hidden in the Greek text are very odd groupings of the number 7. Setting out on purpose to collect all these 7's and arrange them as Matthew does would probably be humanly impossible. Here is what Matthew 1:1-11 has in it: a) the number of words in 1-11 is exactly divisible by 7; b) the number of letters is exactly divisible by 7; c) the number of vowels is exactly divisible by 7; d) the number of consonants is exactly divisible by 7; e) the number of words that begin with a vowel is exactly divisible by 7; f) the number of words that begin with a consonant is exactly divisible by 7; g) the number of words that occur more than once is exactly divisible by 7; h) the number of words that occur in more than one form is exactly divisible by 7; i) the number of words that occur in only one form is exactly divisible by 7; j) the number of nouns is exactly divisible by 7; k) only 7 words are not nouns; l) the number of names is exactly divisible by 7; m) only 7 other kinds of nouns appear there; n) the number of male names is exactly divisible by 7; o) the number of generations is exactly divisible by 7. [This phenomenon similarly appears in the Hebrew text of Genesis 1.]