357 Memoirs of Eddie H. Christ, Jesus' Little Brother: Road Trip

The Star of the Magi had provoked astronomical speculation for centuries—well, among Christian astronomers. Some have theorized that it was a nearby supernova. Jesus explained that it wasn’t, because the resulting gamma ray burst—whatever that was—would have wiped out the world. So, probably not.

Sorry. It sounded good for a while, didn’t it?

Halley’s comet was around in 12 B.C., but if you saw the one in ‘86, it wasn’t worth some wise man riding a camel 750 miles for. Maybe it would have been enough for Caspar. Anyway, 12 B.C. was too early. Jesus was born about 4 years BC (Before Christ), which is pretty funny when you think about it.

Actually, the best theory says it was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces. Pisces is the last constellation the sun passes through each year, so it’s symbolic of wringing out the old and ringing in the new.

Around 7 B.C., the Earth was on the opposite side of the sun as Jupiter and Saturn, so since they took longer to revolve around the sun, in the sky—in Pisces—no less, they would seem to advance together and then actually stop.

And on top of that, Mars moved into Pisces, too.

This was creepy, because to the Babylonians, where the Magi came from, Mars was a star of the West. Rome’s control over Syria was a little shaky, so here’s this set-up for a major astrological event that happens only once in a thousand years, in Pisces, when old things must end and new ones begin, and everyone back East is looking for a new king to replace the foreigners from Rome, and the star of the West—the star of victorious battle—the Roman god of war, no less—jumps on the bandwagon.

Sure looked like a king was born in the West who would send the stupid blood-sucking Romans packing, and on top of everything, he’s a religious guy, as foretold by prophets. If you were a Zoroastrian priest from Persia with a penchant for astrology, you couldn’t help but shout, “Road trip!” to your pals, which is what Balthassar and Melchior did.

Caspar asked, “Fellas? Where ya going? Can I come?”

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AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Sunday, December 22, Day 357 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge.

366 WORDS (without A/N)

ONLY 9 STORIES TO GO! THE STORIES KEEP COMING...LIKE NINE LADIES DANCING IN THIS 2024 STORY-A-DAY VOCAL CHALLENGE.

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