The Star of Bethlehem: Replies to Mocking Atheists

This article is based on an encounter I had with three atheists at the infamous Debunking Christianity site in December 2020. It was a prime example of an altogether typical ill-informed attempted mockery from supposedly intellectually superior atheists, who in their almost invariable / inevitable ignorance of biblical language and Christian thought end up making themselves look very silly indeed (at least when an apologist like myself is around).

The atheists noted (citing Mt 2:9, 11) that the star stopped over a house, not a manger, and that this was (as always) allegedly a "conundrum" for Christians. But no one’s saying it was a manger at this time. That’s the Christmas story of the shepherds in Luke. Almost all Christians believe that the Magi visited a Jesus who was one or two years old, not a newborn. So there was a house by then and not a temporary manger, which was a trough for animals to eat from (in a cave: which I visited in 2014). If these atheists knew much of anything regarding Christian beliefs in the first place, they would already known this and I wouldn’t have had to spend time explaining the elementary and obvious textual facts to them.

The Bible, by the way, never asserts that the star rested over the “house” or “manger”; it says “the place where the child was”: which could mean the entire area of Bethlehem, just as we say “the moon was shining down on us” at a harvest dance, etc. Such celestial light being exactly on a manger (wrong) or specifically aimed at the holy family (which the text never says, either) is struictly the domain of Christmas cards and manger scenes, rather than the Bible. Even many Christians often mix up the two things. It's understandable and not an earthshaking matter, but nonetheless we ought to be accurate in our understandings, especially when sharing and explaining our Christian faith. Otherwise, we can lose credibility.

They then inquired as to how a star could specify an object as small as a house? Since the text doesn’t claim that in the first place, it's a non sequitur (a logical term for irrelevancy) and therefore not a thing that Christians need to explain or defend. They would simply have to ask the locals about this child who generated so much excitement one or two years previously, and where He lived. Word about notable events travels fast in small towns (I live in one now, and this is very true). They were led not just by a bright star, to go to Bethlehem, but also by biblical prophecy. It would be like when I visited Woodstock, New York in 1992 and asked someone at a gas station if they knew where “Big Pink” was: the famous house where Bob Dylan and The Band recorded The Basement Tapes in 1967 (I'm obviously a big Dylan fan). It so happened that this guy lived there, so he took me right to it. Bethlehem at this time only had an estimated 1500 residents.

Then they asked about why the wise men had to visit Herod, if the star was already guiding them? Obviously they did because he “summoned” them (Mt 2:7). One generally does what a king asks them to do. How silly are we going to get? They made the same point about being guided by prophecy. But I noted that they didn’t absolutely "need" the star. It was “supplemental” evidence. They didn’t necessarily know about Bethlehem in particular until they arrived in Jerusalem. But a bright star had led them west to the area.

The next question fired out was regarding the wise men seeing the star in daylight. But the biblical text never stated that they saw it in the daylight. Even if it did, I easily saw a recent conjunction that was supposed to resemble the star of Bethlehem in fairly light twilight, a block away from my house. But in fact it is known that it’s possible to see planetary objects (in this case, planets; “stars” only in the generic sense) during the daytime. An article about it on EarthSky.org: “Top 10 space objects to see during the day” (Larry Sessions, 6-11-18) noted that Venus can sometimes still be observed even after the sun comes up, as can (with more difficulty) Jupiter, and it's possible to even see Mars during the day

But beyond all of these considerations, there was never any need at any time for the wise men to see stars during the daylight. They simply saw a star indicating (by their astronomical-astrological reasoning) “west.” The major city due west of both Babylon and northwest Persia (where it is known that a “Magi” caste of priests existed at that time) was Jerusalem. And so they set out to Jerusalem. "Anti-theist" atheist polemics (very prominent online these days) -- generally speaking -- seek to make the Bible and Christian belief look ridiculous: as if it is immediately impossible for any rational, scientific person to believe. Accordingly, one of these atheists' comments implied that it was immediately absurd to believe that a star could be seen in the daylight. This is untrue, but in any event, the biblical text doesn’t claim this. In other words, implying that it did is a straw man in the first place. But, nice try . . . 

It was then noted by our fact-challenged friends that travel didn't occur at night in ancient times. But again, going by the relevant biblical texts (Mt 2:1-12), it doesn’t follow that they had to travel at night; only that they saw the star at night and noted what direction it was. So, noting that no travel at night happened (at least for any great distance) is merely another non sequitur. But to go from Jerusalem to Bethlehem at night is only a six-mile journey (following a very well-known route), and this is the text that says the star “went before them”: which simply means that it was ahead of them as they traveled: just like we can say we “followed the sun west” and so forth. 

Anti-theist atheists need to learn what it means to use phenomenological language (the non-literal language of appearances) which the Bible habitually does, and as we all use all the time (“the sun went down”; “the sun was shining on my head so much that I got a terrible sunburn”; “I saw the sun shining right on the beautiful mountain in the distance.”). But it’s all very typical of atheists arguments against Christianity. We are what we eat. If atheist surround themselves with such silly arguments, they’ll end up parroting them and never learning anything. But I'll be more than happy to refute them until that time comes, if it ever does, for most of these vapid and irrational critics of the BIble and Christianity. As the old saying goes, "a man convinced against his will retains his original beliefs still."