Matthew was one of the twelve apostles. He also wrote the first book of the New Testament. In that book, he recorded that the birth of Jesus was accompanied by an extraordinary celestial event: a star led the magi (the “wise men”) to Jesus. This star “went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was” (Matthew 2:9). What was this star? And how did it lead the magi to the Lord? There have been many speculations.
Common Explanations
Explanations for the event include a supernova, a comet, a massing of planets, a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Regulus (a bright star in the constellation Leo), or the astonishing conjunction of Jupiter and Venus on June 17, 2 BC. Although each of these events is truly spectacular and may have been fitting to announce the birth of the King of Kings, none of them seems to fully satisfy the details of the straightforward reading of Matthew 2. None of the above speculations fully explain how the star “went ahead of” the magi nor how it “stood over where the child was.” Indeed no known natural phenomenon would be able to stand over Bethlehem since all “natural” stars continually move due to the rotation of the earth.1 They appear to rise in the east and set in the west, or circle around the celestial poles. However, the Bible does not say that this star was a natural phenomenon.
