Why did the Christian messiah fail to fulfill the messianic prophecies?

GOOD GRIEF! WATCH THE VIDEO fer cryin out loud! There is no point in having an opinion when you don't know what Larson took into account, and I can't spell it ALL out for you. He did plenty of research to put that thing together, both about astronomical events and about the Bible. GO WATCH THE VIDEO before you start accusing him of all the usual perfidies you assign to Christians!I did make an effort to put it all together in Message 440 but I couldn't cover all his reasoning in a brief post. The video is in Message 438Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not of this particular closeness which would have magnified their combined brightness, according to Larson.ABE: He also says that this particular conjunction is shown in planetariums at Christmas time, which if so would imply it is considered to have been something special.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Watching the night sky isn't going to do one thing toward understanding what Larson did.

I've been forced into trying to explain the star, but there's more to the video than that, and nothing is forced about any of it. The questions are about whether he has the right dates, not about the phenomena on those dates nor their correspondence with scripture -- which in itself suggests he may have found the right dates.Nor is the timing of the star forced, such as the fact that Jupiter did begin retrograde six months after the bright conjunction of it with Venus. I think it is reasonable to try to interpret it from the Magis' point of view, which is what I've been doing.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

He allowed six months for the trip of 700 miles from Babylon, and shows Jupiter in the southern sky as they turned toward Bethlehem.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The conjunction is pictured as forming a figure 8, one right up against the other.Look, I watched this thing at least three times before I could get a grip on the events he was talking about. There's enough in it that is compelling anyway, so I kept going back to it in spite of the difficulty putting it all together.I had a lot of questions of my own. I don't see any reason to distrust his honesty, but he certainly could have made mistakes in spite of putting in a lot of research to get things right.I watched it very carefully yesterday in order to sketch it out as I did in Message 440 which allowed me finally to see how one event related to another. I think the objectivity of the study comes through in that, which increases the awe factor for me rather than diminishing it. Sure, he could still have gotten some things wrong, but not on the level of the wild accusations going on here..ABE: Excahyoose me, but the ability of the scientifically minded of EvC to allow themselves to have a wild opinion WITHOUT BOTHERING ABOUT THE EVIDENCE is really amazing.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The line about seeing it in the east can't mean the star WAS in the east; that's not a mistake the scripture could have made. They went to Judea and that's west so that line has to be understood in some other way.It's five miles south from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, about a two or three hour trek I would guess, and the software shows Jupiter in the southern sky during the time Larson thinks they made the trip. Yes it would have moved, but the question is what is meant by the star stopping since of course the sky continues to move.

The star would not have appeared in the east if it announced the birth of a King of the Jews.Observation may not be the key to the stopping of the star, it could have been based on the Magis' own calculations since they had spent their lives at that sort of thing. I think this is an implication, though Larson doesn't say this.

Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't really mean you, I was venting about the general gist of the thread.Nevertheless your comments imply that Larson didn't take those things into account. He certainly had in mind, and said, that some phenomena could have happened frequently enough to make any single event suspect so he wasn't ignoring such things.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't know, but casting an astrological chart takes both time and place into account, so place figures into the calculations somehow.

Yes he should have taken all that into account.There's so much that is compelling in this video showing how various scripture passages are reflected in the celestial movements, I hate to get all caught up in one point like this.

Larson didn't say much at all about the star, except to identify the brightest object in the sky as the conjunction of Venus with Jupiter in June of 2BC, and to identify Jupiter as the star the Magi would have seen over Bethlehem six months later. That's really all he said.

I was out for most of the day. Larson didn't say the star stayed in the same position, which leaves it open how to interpret what he did say, which is what I just said in the previous post. As for their seeing it in the west I confused it with the Magis' seeing it in the south as they went to Bethlehem from Jerusalem, the idea being that it was "over" where the King was born..

Larson arrived at the conclusion that its stopping must have been the point of turning retrograde, and then found that occurring about the time the Magi would have been getting close to Bethlehem.

I think probably the most striking information in the video is the picture in the Astronomy program of Virgo rising with the sun, and with the new moon at her feet, which reflects what John said in Revelation 12:1-2: That was Rosh Hashana of 3BC. In the same month the three conjunctions of Jupiter and Regulus had occurred, King planet with King star, in the constellation of Leo, which Larson identifies as symbolic of the Lion of Judah which is a name for the Messiah. That was followed by Virgo rising as described above. Larson took that as his starting point, at first thinking it might have been the birth of Christ, then deciding maybe the conception or the Annunciation, then going on to find the bright Jupiter-Venus conjunction nine months later.That astrological image of Virgo reflects so exactly what John described there hardly seems any reason to think that's not what he saw. And Virgo appears again on the day of the crucifixion, this time rising with the full blood moon at her feet.ABE: In Acts 2:20 on the day of Pentecost, Peter quotes the Prophet Joel and tells the crowd that they had all witnessed the fulfillment of that prophecy, apparently referring to the crucifixion of Jesus: /ABELarson thinks the woman is Mary, but I think the best interpretation is that she represents Israel as a whole. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.