The Birthday of Jesus! Exploring the Supernatural Arrival of our Saviour! (Part 2)
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3. The Dragon
3. The Dragon
Scholars of the book of Revelation have long noted the connection of the dragon to Old Testament terminology for the sea monster that symbolized chaos. As Osborne notes:
Throughout the ancient Near East, the sea monster symbolized the war between good and evil, between the gods and chaos.… Obviously, in similar fashion to the meaning of “abyss” in 9:1–2, this builds on the fact that for the nations surrounding the Mediterranean basin, the sea meant unfathomable depths and the chaos of death. Thus, Leviathan or the “dragon” came to represent all the terrors of the sea and thus the presence of evil and death.… It also signified nations that stood against God and his people. The dragon or Leviathan is defeated both at the beginning of creation (Ps[alm] 74:13; 89:10 = Isa[iah] 51:9 [“Rahab”]; 2 Esdr. [4 Ezra] 6:49–52) and at the day of Yahweh (Isa[iah] 27:1; 2 Bar[uch] 29.4). First Enoch 60.7–10, 24 speak of the female sea monster Leviathan and the male Behemoth destroyed at the “great day of the Lord.”
There are two major candidates for the dragon with respect to constellations. Malina explains:
The second sign is the fire-colored Dragon. The color red locates it in the southern sky.… The fact that the Dragon’s tail sweeps (present tense) away a third of the stars of the sky further points to a location generally lacking in stars compared to other sky locations. This, again, is the south, in the region of the Abyss.… The question we might pose now is, which constellation does John label as the red Dragon, the Dragon in the south? Obviously it is not Draco, which is found at the North Pole. Boll opts for Hydra.… Immediately above Hydra and accompanying it are the constellations of Corax (Raven) and Crater, which have seven and ten stars respectively. Corax with seven, corresponding to the number of heads [in Revelation 12] lies closer to Virgo.… On the other hand, Lehmann-Nitsche argues that the prototypical Dragon of the sky is really ancient Scorpio, originally a larger set of stars than the present constellation. It was truly gigantic, even by celestial zodiac standards, since it originally consisted of two [modern] zodiacal signs (Libra/Claws and Scorpio). It was only relatively recently, that is, about 237 B.C., that it was divided by the Greeks.
Hydra has the advantage of matching the description of the seven heads atop the Dragon in Revelation 12:3 (cf. 13:1; 17:3, 7, 9). Hydra was also conceived as a sea serpent, imagery that matches descriptions in Revelation (13:1), which in turn come from the Leviathan material of the Old Testament (Isaiah 27:1). However, Hydra is not precisely on the ecliptic; it is adjacent and only slightly below the woman. In other words, Hydra is not positioned directly under the feet of the woman, waiting to devour the child as soon as it emerges from the woman. The ecliptic problem is resolved if ancient Scorpio is John’s referent, but that said, the text of Revelation 12 only has the Dragon present (“stood before the woman”), not directly under her feet. Both options are possible correlations.
This combination of signs is not especially rare. But there are other celestial portents to consider that, although not mentioned by John in Revelation 12, were nevertheless present during the time of Jesus’ birth and would have been taken as indications of the birth of a divine king to both Jews and Gentiles.[1]
Other Astronomical Events Occurring with the Signs in Revelation 12
The preceding signs are those described by John. Their occurrence together is not rare, though there were only a handful of dates in real time that can accommodate the events of New Testament chronology for the birth of Jesus. Those dates narrow to one date once other astronomical events that occurred at the same time—but which are not noted in Revelation 12—are added to the celestial profile. One of these extra events is the leading candidate for explaining the movement of the star seen by the Magi in Matthew 2.
The constellation directly above the head of Virgo in the zodiac is
Leo, the lion.
Leo, the lion.
The lion was the symbol associated with the tribe of Judah, from which the Messiah would come. The association arose from Genesis 49:9–10, where Jacob blessed him, referring to him in leonine terms while prophesying that a ruler would come from Judah’s lineage:
Judah is a lion’s cub;
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
The lion-king association is confirmed in Revelation 5:5: “And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’ ” The constellation Leo, then, was a royal constellation for Jewish astro-theologians.
The constellation of Leo was also important in Gentile astrology. It was the chief or head sign of the zodiac and had special importance in astrological circles. Leo was considered a royal constellation since it was dominated by the star
Regulus “King Star”
Regulus “King Star”
which was known by astrologers as the “King Star.”
The status of Regulus in Leo is important because on one of the possible dates for the messianic birth it came into conjunction with Jupiter. As the largest planet, Jupiter was considered the “King Planet” in astro-theological thinking of the first century. As a result, the constellation Leo, the messianic sign of the lion of Judah to Jews who “read” the heavens, had two conjoined signs of a royal birth within it.
This combination of astronomical signs produces a unique set of circumstances that can only be accounted for by one date (and in point of fact, a ninety-minute window on that date). This date, as we will see momentarily, has dramatic significance in the Jewish calendar. According to these signs in the heavens, the date of Jesus’ birth was
September 11, 3 B.C.
September 11, 3 B.C.
Jupiter is also important because it is the best explanation for the “star” whose movement was tracked by the Magi. Jupiter is well known for “retrograde motion,” the appearance of movement back and forth in the night sky. Jupiter’s first conjunction with Regulus began on September 14, 3 B.C., and continued through September 11, 3 B.C. On December 1, 3 B.C., Jupiter stopped its normal course through the fixed stars and began its annual retrogression or “backward motion.” In doing so, it once again headed toward the star Regulus. Then on February 17, 2 B.C., the two were reunited. Jupiter continued on in its motion (still in retrogression) another forty days and then it reverted to its normal motion through the stars. The timing is right, as the Magi embarked on their journey a year or so after Jesus was actually born.118
The Birth of Jesus on September 11, 3 B.C., The Day of Trumpets, and Noah’s Flood
The Birth of Jesus on September 11, 3 B.C., The Day of Trumpets, and Noah’s Flood
The astronomical context of John’s description of what he saw in the heavens in Revelation 12 puts the birth of Jesus on September 11, 3 B.C. As impressive as the correlation of astronomical events with the description of Revelation 12 is, there are even more points of correlation that bear directly on the astro-theology being communicated.
The literary context of Revelation 12 is of relevance here. Immediately preceding Revelation 12, John described the heavenly appearance of the temple and the Ark of the Covenant (Revelation 11:19). The Ark was the central symbol of God’s presence with Israel. The birth of the child (Jesus) in Revelation 12:1–7 was John’s way of saying that the presence of God had indeed returned to earth in the form of this Child, the Messiah. New Testament scholar Greg Beale notes the significance of this juxtaposition by John:
[A] trumpet was to be blown on Tishri 1, which in the rabbinic period came to be viewed as the beginning of the New Year. God’s eschatological judgment of all people was expected to fall on this day.… The New Year trumpet also proclaimed hope in the ongoing and ultimate kingship of God, in God’s judgment and reward according to people’s deeds, and in Israel’s final restoration.
Incredibly, the astronomical reconstruction of the circumstances of Revelation 12:1–7 that produces a birth date for the Messiah of September 11, 3 B.C., was also the beginning of the Jewish New Year in 3 B.C. (Rosh ha-Shanah)—Tishri 1, the Day of Trumpets. The Feast of Trumpets/Tishri 1 was also the day that many of the ancient kings and rulers of Judah reckoned as their inauguration day of rule. This procedure was followed consistently in the time of Solomon, Jeremiah, and Ezra. This is a powerful piece of evidence for the astronomical reading of Revelation 12:1–7 as celestial signs of the birth of the messianic king.
Jewish tradition also held that the Day of Trumpets commemorated the beginning of the world—the very first “first day” of the human calendar. As Jewish historian Theodor H. Gaster writes, “Judaism regards New Year’s Day not merely as an anniversary of creation—but more importantly as a renewal of it. This is when the world is reborn.” Although it might sound odd, this tradition is part of a matrix of ideas that link Tishri 1 to the sin of the Watchers, the Flood of Noah, and the Nephilim.
The first step toward discerning these connections is to understand the Jewish calendar—at least insofar as it relates to our topic. The ancient Israelite, biblical, and Jewish calendrical circumstances are like our own in that multiple calendars are in play. For example, in modern Western civilization, it is common to have a calendar that maps the seasons, a school-year calendar, and a fiscal-year calendar. All three calendars cover twelve months, but their beginning points frequently differ.
Today, the Jewish New Year (Rosh Ha-Shanah) “occurs on the first and second days of Tishri.” Anyone who is Jewish or has Jewish friends knows, however, that this New Year’s Day and the New Year’s Day we celebrate according to the modern Gregorian calendar (January 1) are not the same. Jewish Rosh Ha-Shanah occurs in the fall season (September–October).123 The first month of the year is Tishri and occurs in the fall. Fall was, of course, the season of the harvest—an important idea to which we shall return in a moment.
Exodus 12:1–2, however, suggests that the first month of the Israelite calendar was not Tishri. After the Israelites escaped Egypt, the first month was aligned with the Passover (Exodus 12:3) to commemorate the new beginning of the Israelite nation after the Exodus from Egypt. The calendar of Exodus 12 detached the first season of the calendar from the agricultural harvest and instead attached it to this national rebirth. The first month of this new calendar was Nisan (Esther 3:7).
Of these two calendars, the agricultural calendar that had Tishri as the first month is the oldest in Israelite history, predating the Exodus. The biblical text contains hints of this older calendar in certain passages that describe the ending of the year (Exodus 23:16; 34:22). Whereas Tishri marked the fall harvest, the end of the year was marked by the Feast of Ingathering (ʾāsı̂p).
The important point for our purposes is that the most ancient Israelite calendar began with Tishri, which fell in fall season with a harvest—after the rains had produced the fall crop. This month and this harvest, as Gaster noted, were considered a memorial of creation. Why? The answer is simple: Genesis has Adam and Eve placed in a lush garden, Eden. Because of the availability of food for Adam and Eve, the creation must have begun in the harvest season—and so the earliest Hebrew calendar began the year in the harvest season. Hence, the first month, Tishri, fell in the fall harvest season. This logic produces the idea that the Israelite New Year signaled a renewal of creation.
In her fascinating scholarly essay, “The Pleiades, the Flood, and the Jewish New Year,” Dr. Ellen Robbins, a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University, details how this ancient calendrical thinking factored into the interpretation of the Flood story—including its preamble about the sons of God and the Nephilim.
We must start at the way Genesis 7 describes the onset of the Flood:
6Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. 7And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. 11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
According to this passage, Noah was already 600 when the Flood began. As the waters were subsiding, just after the dove was released from the ark for the last time, Genesis 8 provides this chronological note:
13In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.”
The math is transparent. Barely over a year after the Flood began, Noah and his family left the ark in the second month of the year. Noah had turned 601 by the time he left the ark.
Why is this noteworthy? Because Jewish tradition took this chronology to mean that Noah’s birthday was Tishri 1. This is the same day as the birth of the Messiah, Jesus, if we take Revelation 12 as indicating the celestial signs present at his birth. A messiah born on Tishri 1 would inevitably have created mental and theological associations between Noah and Jesus.
There are other details about the chronology of the Flood that, given the idea that Jesus and Noah shared a birthday, would have moved ancient Jewish readers to associate the Messiah with the prologue to the Flood story, Genesis 6:1–4. The second month of the year, the month when Noah and his family emerged from the ark after the Flood had swept the earth clean of its wickedness and the awful Nephilim, was marked astronomically by the heliacal appearance of the Pleiades. A star’s heliacal rising “is a phenomenon where a star is first visible in the morning sky. On this day, a star will only be briefly and barely visible, since if you had looked a day earlier, it was too close to the Sun for visibility.”
The cluster of stars known as the Pleiades (Hebrew term: kima) is mentioned three times in the Old Testament (Amos 5:8; Job 9:9; 38:31). It is always paired with Orion (Hebrew: kesil), since its position in the sky is close to the Orion constellation. Not surprisingly, Orion was considered a giant in the ancient world. The last reference, Job 38:31, is significant in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In one Targum of Job (i.e., an Aramaic translation of Job) discovered at Qumran, Job 38:31 reads, “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades (kima) or loose the cords of Orion (naphilaʾ)?” This last term, the Aramaic word for Orion, is the Aramaic noun from which Nephilim derives.128
Recall our discussion in chapter 3 on the importance of the Mesopotamian context for Genesis 6:1–4 and its preservation in 1 Enoch and other Second Temple Jewish literature. In Mesopotamian astronomy, Orion was referred to as “the true shepherd of Anu.” Anu was the chief god of the heavenly realm, the sky. The shepherd motif was associated in the ancient Near East with kingship. Orion, then, was Anu’s chosen king. But this naphila wasn’t the true shepherd-king for the followers of Yahweh, the true God.
The shepherd imagery, of course, is overtly messianic:
The king took on numerous idealized roles as leader of his people, including the idea of “royal adoption” (i.e., the deity adopts the king as his “son” [2 Samuel 7:14; cf. Psalm 89:26–27]), shepherd of the people (2 Sam[uel] 5:2; 7:7).… David became the model of the “ideal king” for Israel (cf. 2 Kings 18:3; 22:2) and the prototype of the Messiah as the ultimate “shepherd-king” (Jer[emiah] 33:15; Ezek[iel] 34:23–24; 37:24–25; cf. Rev[elation] 22:16).
Theological Messaging
Theological Messaging
The theological messaging is startling. A messiah whose birth on Tishri 1 was followed in the next month by the rising of the Pleiades-Orion would have signaled the arrival of Yahweh’s shepherd-king. The following month, the second month of the year when Noah and his family emerged from the ark, marked the judgment of God upon the Nephilim. But we know from Genesis 6:4 and other passages that the Flood wasn’t the permanent cure for the Nephilim and the effect of the sin of the Watchers in human history. What was needed was a new Noah. And so on Tishri 1, the traditional birthday of Noah, the heavens telegraphed the identity of the better Noah, Jesus of Nazareth, born as He was from Noah’s own bloodline (Luke 3:36). The permanent reversal of the ancient pact sealed on Mount Hermon had begun.[2]
[1] Heiser, M. S. (2017). Reversing Hermon: Enoch, The Watchers & The Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ (pp. 62–63). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[2] Heiser, M. S. (2017). Reversing Hermon: Enoch, The Watchers & The Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ (pp. 63–70). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.