# Nativity Nonsense! (with Dr. Aaron Adair)

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 22 Dec 2025, 45 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69064518/podcast850_nativitynonsense.mp3

Physicist and author Dr. Aaron Adair talks about just some of the many problems with the biblical nativity story. Dr. Adair's book VIDEO of this conversation Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
[0:13] Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
[0:18] Speaker 1: I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
[0:22] Speaker 1: not because.
[0:22] Speaker 2: I put my hand on a book and made a.
[0:24] Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 3: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 3: Truth Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 3: There is a video version of what you're about to hear.
[0:59] Speaker 3: My interview with doctor Aaron Adair. He wrote a book
[1:02] Speaker 3: called The Star of Bethlehem, a skeptical view. Now he's
[1:06] Speaker 3: a physicist and he has done a lot of research
[1:10] Speaker 3: into the Nativity story, the background of Jesus as a
[1:15] Speaker 3: mythological character. Was there a real Jesus? Well, he's got
[1:19] Speaker 3: a perspective on that. We talk about Matthew versus Luke,
[1:22] Speaker 3: and then the earlier pagan question mark origins of so
[1:27] Speaker 3: many Christmas traditions. I do enjoy walking into the house
[1:31] Speaker 3: of a devout believer and being like not Christian, that's
[1:35] Speaker 3: not Christian. Not Christian. Ooh, definitely not Christian. And I
[1:40] Speaker 3: don't say anything. I'm not that guy, but I do
[1:43] Speaker 3: have those thoughts. I also have this thought since I've
[1:47] Speaker 3: got a few minutes and I just want to vent
[1:50] Speaker 3: I enjoyed the holiday. I don't love Christmas like I
[1:54] Speaker 3: love Halloween. Halloween it's a lot more personality, I think.
[1:58] Speaker 3: And it's not just because it's it it's dark. I
[2:00] Speaker 3: just think there are more layers to it. Right Christmas
[2:04] Speaker 3: to me, you know, we get together with those we
[2:08] Speaker 3: care about in my house, we open gifts and we
[2:11] Speaker 3: enjoy great food, and we say language of love. We
[2:14] Speaker 3: actually have a tradition where we write down our history
[2:18] Speaker 3: for the years, so we talk about some of the
[2:20] Speaker 3: big things that we did or didn't do, want to do,
[2:23] Speaker 3: learn thought, et cetera. And then we sit around in
[2:26] Speaker 3: a big circle and we share those and so you know,
[2:28] Speaker 3: this year I did this, and I was given the
[2:30] Speaker 3: honor of that, and we're going to talk about the
[2:33] Speaker 3: stuff that made twenty twenty five not suck. And then
[2:39] Speaker 3: at the end we all play some games and hug
[2:42] Speaker 3: and everybody goes home. Christmas right. We got a Christmas tree.
[2:45] Speaker 3: It's a little led tree that we got for one
[2:47] Speaker 3: hundred bucks years ago at home depot. It's one of
[2:51] Speaker 3: the it's led, so you just walk by and you
[2:54] Speaker 3: step on the little switch and you can make it white,
[2:57] Speaker 3: you can make it colorful, you can make it static,
[3:00] Speaker 3: you can make it flash or blink or do whatever.
[3:02] Speaker 3: I'm in that's my kind of tree. The thing goes
[3:05] Speaker 3: up in three minutes and it looks amazing. And some
[3:10] Speaker 3: Christmas music I do enjoy, even a few of the
[3:14] Speaker 3: songs that talk about the baby Jesus. Now this makes
[3:16] Speaker 3: some atheist's head explode. I enjoy the song Oh Holy Night.
[3:23] Speaker 3: I know it's about Jesus. I know that, but I
[3:26] Speaker 3: love the melody of it. I will play it sometimes
[3:29] Speaker 3: on the piano. I can separate in my brain the
[3:32] Speaker 3: fact that it's mythology. I just kind of dig how
[3:36] Speaker 3: the song vibes. And some people can't go there, and
[3:41] Speaker 3: that's totally fine. But I'm able to with some of
[3:43] Speaker 3: the tunes separate them. But I do understand the feeling
[3:47] Speaker 3: of cynicism that does creep up when this time of
[3:51] Speaker 3: year hits, because so much of it is just so
[3:54] Speaker 3: damn happy. And I don't mean like a healthy version
[3:59] Speaker 3: of happiness. You're centered, you feel warm in your heart,
[4:03] Speaker 3: you are secure and content, and I don't know whatever
[4:07] Speaker 3: happy is in that sound. I'm talking about those ads
[4:10] Speaker 3: for the retailers who are desperate for us to go
[4:14] Speaker 3: into massive debt to buy shit that people will use
[4:17] Speaker 3: for five minutes before they toss it away and then
[4:19] Speaker 3: the music plays. All of these commercials have the same
[4:22] Speaker 3: kind of music, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding
[4:25] Speaker 3: ding ding dinging. Nothing's that happy. Nothing is that happy
[4:29] Speaker 3: unless you're six years old. That kind of music probably
[4:33] Speaker 3: makes you crazy. The bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,
[4:38] Speaker 3: so many bells.
[4:39] Speaker 2: Stop with the bells.
[4:41] Speaker 3: Stop it. There are perfect looking people with perfect hair
[4:46] Speaker 3: and perfect skin, perfect teeth, wearing all of their perfect
[4:49] Speaker 3: red and green attire, hugging and laughing and womping through
[4:53] Speaker 3: the aisles of Target or Walmart or wherever, or the
[4:57] Speaker 3: jewelry stores. Oh, those commercials are amazing, aren't they. A
[5:02] Speaker 3: guy walks It's always a guy. He walks in and
[5:05] Speaker 3: he picks out the perfect ring or the perfect necklace
[5:09] Speaker 3: for the woman that he loves. It's never a non
[5:11] Speaker 3: hetero couple. It's always a man and a woman. And
[5:14] Speaker 3: he goes in and then he goes home and there's
[5:16] Speaker 3: a special dinner, or they're in front of the fireplace
[5:19] Speaker 3: and he opens up that little box and a bobble
[5:22] Speaker 3: blings and she starts to cry and they hug and
[5:25] Speaker 3: it's so beautiful. And I'm like, that guy just went
[5:29] Speaker 3: into dead at twenty one percent interest to buy a
[5:32] Speaker 3: five thousand dollars rock. I just don't understand it. It's
[5:39] Speaker 3: a rock, it's a shiny rock. It's a rock. How
[5:44] Speaker 3: long by your knockoff for fifty bucks? No one can
[5:48] Speaker 3: tell the difference. I don't think we assess our love.
[5:52] Speaker 3: We don't measure our love for each other based on
[5:55] Speaker 3: how many zeros exist before the decimal point on the risk.
[6:00] Speaker 3: I just don't. But that's so much of what the
[6:03] Speaker 3: holiday is. And then I'm driving down our neighborhood street
[6:07] Speaker 3: and I see Christmas decorations. Now I'm in, I've got
[6:12] Speaker 3: Christmas decorations. There are more winter decorations. We've got the
[6:15] Speaker 3: big deer. I got some big deer. We've had them
[6:18] Speaker 3: for seven years. We put him out, and I've got
[6:21] Speaker 3: red and blue and white lights. I actually make a pond.
[6:24] Speaker 3: There's a river that goes and it creates a pond
[6:27] Speaker 3: with a neon outline, and I cast some blue green
[6:31] Speaker 3: hues upon the rock of the house to make it
[6:33] Speaker 3: look like a winter scene. And it's so pretty, and
[6:37] Speaker 3: I enjoy looking at it. Hell I enjoy displaying it
[6:41] Speaker 3: for everybody else and us. I'm cruising down the road.
[6:44] Speaker 3: We've got a big inflatable snow globe, so pretty, a
[6:49] Speaker 3: big Santa Claus. There's a snowman that looks like he's
[6:52] Speaker 3: made out of giant styrofoam, with the carrot nose and
[6:56] Speaker 3: the coal eyes and the scarf and the little twig hand.
[7:00] Speaker 3: He's adorable. We've got the big toy soldiers from the Nutcracker.
[7:05] Speaker 3: Somebody down the street has one that looks like it's
[7:08] Speaker 3: eight feet tall. I'm like, how fun is that? How
[7:12] Speaker 3: festive is that? And then I see the Nativity scenes?
[7:18] Speaker 3: Is there anything more kitchy on this planet than a
[7:21] Speaker 3: Nativity scene? You know what I'm saying. First of all,
[7:24] Speaker 3: I think about the one that looks like two t
[7:26] Speaker 3: rexes fighting each other. Have you seen that? They're everywhere?
[7:30] Speaker 3: They are ubiquitous, So if you haven't just pay attention.
[7:33] Speaker 3: You're going to go by, and it's supposed to be
[7:34] Speaker 3: Mary and Joseph on each side of the baby, Jesus
[7:37] Speaker 3: looking down, and all of a sudden your brain flips
[7:40] Speaker 3: and you don't see Mary, Joseph and the baby. You
[7:43] Speaker 3: see two tea rexes fighting with each other. And now
[7:48] Speaker 3: whenever I cruise by one of those, that's all I see.
[7:51] Speaker 3: That's all I see. But there are nativities for the mantle,
[7:55] Speaker 3: and there are nativities on wall paintings, and there are
[7:59] Speaker 3: of courseivities in yards everywhere. And I, as a former
[8:04] Speaker 3: evangelical Bible believing Nativity seen believing Christian, now I see
[8:11] Speaker 3: not the miraculous magical birth of the hero of the story.
[8:16] Speaker 3: I'm like God decided to save humanity by knocking up
[8:20] Speaker 3: an unwed teenagers so the baby could spend thirty some
[8:24] Speaker 3: years doing undocumented miracles before becoming a bloody meat pinota
[8:31] Speaker 3: to rescue us from the torture chamber that he himself created.
[8:35] Speaker 3: Because that omniscient, omnipotent deity couldn't properly blueprint his own creation.
[8:44] Speaker 3: Everybody else is doing the Christmas pageant, and they bring
[8:48] Speaker 3: some actual baby in and They've got a Mary and
[8:51] Speaker 3: a Joseph in their role in their little biblical attire.
[8:54] Speaker 3: Some churches bring live animals in Oh, look a camel,
[8:59] Speaker 3: a donkey, a sheep. There are drive through Nativity scenes.
[9:04] Speaker 3: You stay in your car and you weave through on
[9:07] Speaker 3: a road in a parking lot, all of these scenes. Ah.
[9:10] Speaker 3: There's the wise men. Ah, there's herod Ah. There's Bethlehem,
[9:15] Speaker 3: there's the Manger. There's light and happiness and confetti and
[9:21] Speaker 3: probably somebody at the end of the road with a
[9:23] Speaker 3: Bible asking you to drop to your knees to accept
[9:26] Speaker 3: the baby Jesus that you just saw a block before. Kitchie,
[9:32] Speaker 3: I'm just saying it's Kitchie. Now, I will say that
[9:36] Speaker 3: I am all about these anti Ice Nativity displays. These
[9:42] Speaker 3: have become a flashpoint in the United States. Have you
[9:44] Speaker 3: seen them? If you have not, you should Google search
[9:47] Speaker 3: them because wow, and this is legit. There are progressive, egalitarian,
[9:54] Speaker 3: humanistic believers, whether it's an individual Christian or somebody in
[9:58] Speaker 3: a neighborhood, ergy, an entire church, a whole church. They
[10:03] Speaker 3: are protesting these kidnappings off of our streets by Ice.
[10:07] Speaker 3: Immigration and Customs Enforcement otherwise known as the American Gestapo,
[10:13] Speaker 3: and so they're putting nativities out that comment on the
[10:17] Speaker 3: atrocity and injustice it all. Lake Street Church, Evanston, Illinois.
[10:22] Speaker 3: They've got a baby Jesus in the manger. He is
[10:25] Speaker 3: wrapped in a silver emergency blanket and Jesus's wrists are
[10:30] Speaker 3: zip tied. Mary is outside the actual manger building. She's
[10:35] Speaker 3: got a plastic gas mask gone. She's being flanked by
[10:40] Speaker 3: Roman soldiers who are dressed up in ice tactical gear.
[10:44] Speaker 3: I mean, it's powerful stuff. There is another church, Urban
[10:49] Speaker 3: Village Church in Chicago that has a sign at the
[10:52] Speaker 3: manger and it says this quote due to ice activity
[10:56] Speaker 3: in our community. The Holy Family is in Saint Susannah
[11:02] Speaker 3: Parish in Deda, Massachusetts, has a Nativity scene that's empty,
[11:06] Speaker 3: replaced only with a hand painted sign that says ice
[11:11] Speaker 3: was here. Of course, news agencies and Magaville are losing
[11:16] Speaker 3: their minds. The Fox News types are just absolutely soiling themselves. Ironically,
[11:22] Speaker 3: there are some who say that, well, because these churches
[11:25] Speaker 3: are making a political statement, especially in contradiction to the
[11:30] Speaker 3: actions of our government, they should lose their tax exempt status,
[11:34] Speaker 3: which is stupid. It's just so crazy because those same
[11:37] Speaker 3: megachurches have been endorsing political candidates from the stage, from
[11:42] Speaker 3: behind the pulpits on the podiums. They're just literally saying
[11:45] Speaker 3: vote here. Some churches handing out voter guides. Jesus wants
[11:50] Speaker 3: you to vote Republican. Those churches, they get to skate
[11:55] Speaker 3: the churches who are making commentary about how their Jesus
[11:58] Speaker 3: went hard against the money any changers and loved everybody
[12:02] Speaker 3: and would never throw somebody in the back of a
[12:04] Speaker 3: van to have them shipped off to a torture chamber somewhere.
[12:09] Speaker 3: Those people, no, no, they're in the crosshairs because they've
[12:12] Speaker 3: broken our state church separation laws. Just so stupid. But
[12:17] Speaker 3: the actual Nativity scenes, the ones that are playing it
[12:20] Speaker 3: straight to me, they are like a Mentos commercial, a
[12:25] Speaker 3: Fanta commercial. They're just too freaking sweet. Anyway, I do
[12:32] Speaker 3: fight cynicism like I'm two people, fun, amazing, wonderful Christmas
[12:37] Speaker 3: and you've got to be shitting me. This is marketing
[12:41] Speaker 3: and retail and guilt and shame and mythology Christmas and
[12:46] Speaker 3: I tend to pendle them swing back and forth. How
[12:50] Speaker 3: about you today, Let's talk Christmas with a physicist who
[12:58] Speaker 3: has been talking a lot about the cosmology of the
[13:01] Speaker 3: story and there's more to it than you might think.
[13:04] Speaker 3: And then the rest of the myth broken down. So
[13:06] Speaker 3: let's get into that again. There's a video. It is
[13:08] Speaker 3: linked in the description box. That interview happens. Next, let's
[13:21] Speaker 3: talk to a physicist and someone who has d constructed
[13:24] Speaker 3: the Biblical Nativity story. Aaron Adair. Good to see you,
[13:29] Speaker 3: my friend.
[13:30] Speaker 2: Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me over.
[13:32] Speaker 3: Let's talk about the birth of the baby Jesus. Jesus
[13:36] Speaker 3: is the reason for the season. By the way, the
[13:38] Speaker 3: war on Christmas is that underway. I haven't browsed Fox
[13:41] Speaker 3: News recently, but I know that's an annual mantra them atheist, secular, humanist, etc.
[13:47] Speaker 3: They hate Christmas and they want we were shaming people
[13:51] Speaker 3: who say Merry Christmas. You've heard this story right Eron.
[13:55] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and I think you are right that Fox
[13:57] Speaker 2: who's already has their anti Christmas war or lights out
[14:01] Speaker 2: nor learning Ingram is already talking about the Grinches of
[14:03] Speaker 2: Christmas going around ruining our wonderful holiday with our evil
[14:07] Speaker 2: secular Muslim Buddhist Satanists commination of things. Because that's obviously
[14:12] Speaker 2: what we do we just go around hating Christmas so
[14:14] Speaker 2: much that we mix all religions and none in our
[14:17] Speaker 2: war against people that just woke up on the wrong
[14:19] Speaker 2: side of the bed.
[14:21] Speaker 3: How do you address the question you're an atheist or
[14:24] Speaker 3: you know, don't believe in a literal baby Jesus came
[14:28] Speaker 3: to save the world, blah blah blah. Why in the
[14:31] Speaker 3: world would you ever celebrate Christmas? Aaron Adare.
[14:35] Speaker 2: It's fun and is the way that we try to
[14:36] Speaker 2: make one part of the year a little bit nicer.
[14:39] Speaker 2: It's fundamentally traditioned in the same sort of way that
[14:42] Speaker 2: today is Friday. But I don't think of the Norse
[14:45] Speaker 2: god Friga or Freya on this sort of day. It's
[14:48] Speaker 2: just happens to be what we call it, and we
[14:50] Speaker 2: happen to celebrate it because it's the end of the
[14:51] Speaker 2: work week. We have found a way to make this
[14:54] Speaker 2: time of the year interesting. Why not keep on with
[14:57] Speaker 2: the a tradition that's fun.
[14:58] Speaker 3: So I saw an article, one of many protests by apologists.
[15:02] Speaker 3: This one was on the Gospel Coalition site from a
[15:05] Speaker 3: couple of years ago, and it said, no modern Christmas
[15:09] Speaker 3: tradition can draw a straight line to any clear and
[15:12] Speaker 3: decisive pagan origin. In other words, there are no Pagan
[15:18] Speaker 3: links to the holiday according to this particular Christian site. Aaron,
[15:23] Speaker 3: how would you respond.
[15:25] Speaker 2: I will say it is complicated, and of course if
[15:28] Speaker 2: they need decisive evidence, that sounds like where you set
[15:31] Speaker 2: the bar to whatever level you need to be in denial. Now,
[15:35] Speaker 2: plenty of traditions around Christmas are probably independent of the
[15:39] Speaker 2: quote unquote pagan world. It's not really well evidenced that
[15:44] Speaker 2: the Christmas tree is ultimately a Pagan origin, though many
[15:47] Speaker 2: have tried for that. On the other hand, the fact
[15:49] Speaker 2: that we have this gift giving and all this merrymaking
[15:51] Speaker 2: at this approximate time of the year, which you also
[15:54] Speaker 2: find in like Roman celebrations like Saturnalia, which included gift giving,
[15:57] Speaker 2: it's hard to say that there is no relationship. And
[16:00] Speaker 2: ultimately how that all worked out is lost. We don't
[16:03] Speaker 2: have that greate a documentation, say in the fourth century,
[16:06] Speaker 2: because well, first off, most people are literate. They're not
[16:08] Speaker 2: writing down today where it's celebrating a new tradition, and
[16:11] Speaker 2: I'm writing this down in Latin that I can't write in.
[16:14] Speaker 3: Do you believe there was a literal Jesus. I'm not
[16:17] Speaker 3: trying to put you on the hook, but I know
[16:19] Speaker 3: the mythicist historicist debate is always a hot one. Where
[16:22] Speaker 3: do you fall?
[16:23] Speaker 2: So this is where I would be an outsider that
[16:26] Speaker 2: I do doubt the historicity of Jesus. But I don't
[16:29] Speaker 2: make that a premise in most of my argumentation, because
[16:33] Speaker 2: there's plenty of reasons to be doubtful of the story
[16:35] Speaker 2: even if there was a dude and he was born
[16:37] Speaker 2: and died at approximate of the times that the only
[16:39] Speaker 2: stories about him place him. But I think there's plenty
[16:42] Speaker 2: of reason to doubt if, of course, new evidence or
[16:44] Speaker 2: new augmentation comes up changed my mind. I'm totally for that.
[16:47] Speaker 2: I don't hold to it all that strongly.
[16:50] Speaker 3: I'm with you like for me, as long as we
[16:52] Speaker 3: can be confident that the god Man didn't exist. The
[16:55] Speaker 3: rest is academic. It's interesting, we can chat about it
[16:57] Speaker 3: over coffee, but I don't get my hooks. Do not
[17:00] Speaker 3: get hung up on that particular snag. Let's talk about
[17:05] Speaker 3: Quirinius and the census, which makes no sense and is
[17:09] Speaker 3: I believe contradicted between Matthew and Luke. Do you get
[17:13] Speaker 3: into the census and Joseph.
[17:14] Speaker 2: So specifically, if we're talking about in my book The
[17:17] Speaker 2: Star of Bethlehem, a skeptical view always available at Amazon.
[17:21] Speaker 2: I don't talk about the census too much except insofar
[17:24] Speaker 2: as it does not match well the timeline from the
[17:28] Speaker 2: Gospel of Matthew. So just to give the thousand twot
[17:30] Speaker 2: view for everyone else what we're talking about here. In
[17:33] Speaker 2: the Bible, there are only two gospels that give a
[17:36] Speaker 2: story of the birth of Jesus. It's in the beginning
[17:39] Speaker 2: of the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew.
[17:42] Speaker 2: Mark and John don't really talk about the birth of
[17:44] Speaker 2: Jesus in those different stories. The telling is very different.
[17:48] Speaker 2: There's rather little overlap between what Matthew and Luke say
[17:51] Speaker 2: about this, and it's enough reason to make us think
[17:54] Speaker 2: they don't have reliable sources whether or not we can
[17:57] Speaker 2: know anything about an historical Jesus. Among the things that's
[18:01] Speaker 2: really weird is in the Gospel of Matthew. It clearly
[18:05] Speaker 2: puts the birth of Jesus during the time of King
[18:09] Speaker 2: Herod the Great, and we know very well when he ruled.
[18:12] Speaker 2: By several different factors, least of which is that we
[18:16] Speaker 2: have the historian Josephus, who among his sources were the
[18:20] Speaker 2: writings of Herod and his court historian. So if Herod's
[18:24] Speaker 2: court historian doesn't know when Herod ran things, we don't
[18:27] Speaker 2: know anything about the past. Now. Conversely, in the Gospel
[18:31] Speaker 2: of Luke, we don't have anything that really clearly places
[18:34] Speaker 2: Jesus' birth in the time of Herod or which Herod.
[18:37] Speaker 2: To make things all the more complicated, Herod had a
[18:39] Speaker 2: bunch of sons who also were named Herod, so it's
[18:42] Speaker 2: like John having a bunch of John's as children. It's
[18:45] Speaker 2: just to make it confusing for all of us later on. Nonetheless,
[18:48] Speaker 2: the detail that Luke does give us says that the
[18:52] Speaker 2: Holy Family had to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem because
[18:55] Speaker 2: of a census the Romans reporting out, and that this
[18:57] Speaker 2: took place during the governorship or rulering of Quirinius in Syria.
[19:02] Speaker 2: Why is this a problem? We know from also a
[19:05] Speaker 2: multiplicity of sources when that takes place, and there is
[19:08] Speaker 2: no overlap between the reign of King Herod the Great
[19:12] Speaker 2: and the governorship of Quarinus. There's about a decade between
[19:15] Speaker 2: the two, so there's at least a ten year impossibility
[19:18] Speaker 2: of these dates working, and as you can imagine, I
[19:21] Speaker 2: have not been the first person to notice this. Apologists
[19:23] Speaker 2: have been pulling their hair out about this for centuries,
[19:26] Speaker 2: and it's basically a bunch of excusagetics on a good day.
[19:31] Speaker 3: Excusagetics is a great word. I'm stealing that eron oh, I.
[19:36] Speaker 2: Think also from Brian Dealt to.
[19:40] Speaker 3: Not original, Well, you steal it. Everything is borrowed in
[19:44] Speaker 3: this world. Why create mediocrity when you can copy genius?
[19:49] Speaker 3: So I believe it's also true that it wasn't required
[19:53] Speaker 3: to leave your hometown to even register in the census,
[19:56] Speaker 3: and only the male heads of household had to do so.
[19:58] Speaker 3: So this idea that he had to put or pregnant
[20:00] Speaker 3: Mary on the donkey and then go travel somewhere, it
[20:03] Speaker 3: doesn't really hold up. Do you get into that at all, Aaron?
[20:07] Speaker 2: Like I said, I don't talk too much about that
[20:09] Speaker 2: in my book. I tried to be as focused as
[20:11] Speaker 2: much as possible on the astronomical story. But you are right,
[20:14] Speaker 2: the census is senseless in how it is described. And
[20:18] Speaker 2: I want to tax you on your property. Why would
[20:21] Speaker 2: I send you to a place that only your ancestor
[20:23] Speaker 2: a thousand years earlier supposedly came from. If you want
[20:27] Speaker 2: to know what taxable property I have, where would you
[20:30] Speaker 2: tell me to go if you need to check on
[20:31] Speaker 2: things where I actually live? Right, So, the whole idea
[20:35] Speaker 2: that people are going back to where their ancestors were
[20:38] Speaker 2: for the purposes of taxation makes absolutely no administrative sense.
[20:42] Speaker 2: And the fact that you have people all around the
[20:44] Speaker 2: empire now having to jump around and somehow they know
[20:47] Speaker 2: where their ancestors came from a thousand years ago, and
[20:49] Speaker 2: also kind of a stupid thing because we say your ancestors,
[20:52] Speaker 2: not everyone's ancestors came from the same town. If I
[20:55] Speaker 2: go back a few generations, I have people living in
[20:58] Speaker 2: all sorts of different parts, even just in the state
[21:00] Speaker 2: of Michigan, where I originally come from, let alone coming
[21:03] Speaker 2: back from Europe. Imagine someone in Rome in you know,
[21:07] Speaker 2: four BC, and say you have to go back to
[21:09] Speaker 2: where your ancestors were, Well, you have dozens and dozens
[21:12] Speaker 2: of ancestors at far back. Which hometown do you go to? Again?
[21:16] Speaker 2: It's just stupid And the idea that, of course all
[21:18] Speaker 2: this paperwork is around, that you could even know who
[21:21] Speaker 2: your anceststors were, where they came from, and can point
[21:24] Speaker 2: that out and some guy in Rome even cares enough,
[21:27] Speaker 2: rather than just doing the simple thing, Hey, where did
[21:30] Speaker 2: your gret.
[21:30] Speaker 4: Great great great gret great greet great greet greet great
[21:32] Speaker 4: grandfather on your father's father's father father father's father father
[21:34] Speaker 4: father father's side come from? You could just ask that
[21:37] Speaker 4: question rather than tell someone. Okay, now go find a
[21:39] Speaker 4: hotel in another country.
[21:40] Speaker 2: It's just stupid.
[21:42] Speaker 3: Okay. So doctor Adair, let me ask you about the
[21:45] Speaker 3: virgin birth. I know this is a big, a critical
[21:48] Speaker 3: part of the miracle story, right, I mean, he was
[21:51] Speaker 3: just born to a woman, a big deal. But if
[21:53] Speaker 3: it's a virgin of course we're looking at a mistranslation
[21:57] Speaker 3: from the Hebrew into the Greek. Do you want to
[21:59] Speaker 3: talk the quote unquote virgin birth.
[22:03] Speaker 2: Yes, the virgin birth is supposedly derived from the prophet
[22:09] Speaker 2: Isaiah that he is supposed to be talking about some
[22:12] Speaker 2: woman conceiving and giving birth to a child. And in
[22:16] Speaker 2: the Greek translation that was really popular at that time.
[22:19] Speaker 2: Noticed the septuagit, the word used for that would suggest virginity.
[22:23] Speaker 2: The Greek word is parthenos. Now, the issue is that
[22:26] Speaker 2: if you go back to the Hebrew it's translating from
[22:29] Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily have that idea of virginity. In some ways, though,
[22:33] Speaker 2: the Hebrew is even worse than that, because the Hebrew
[22:36] Speaker 2: kind of suggests that Isaiah is at that time pointing
[22:40] Speaker 2: to a woman who has conceived, she already is pregnant.
[22:43] Speaker 2: The Greek has now changed into some sort of future event.
[22:46] Speaker 2: So the Greek doesn't match the Hebrew so well because
[22:48] Speaker 2: someone is trying to make this a prophecy of things
[22:50] Speaker 2: to come, and there are other Greek translations in the
[22:53] Speaker 2: same general timeframe that don't make this woman a parthenos,
[22:58] Speaker 2: So it's only in one Greek translation of that time
[23:02] Speaker 2: and ignoring the original language, ignoring everyone else who went
[23:04] Speaker 2: back to the original language to give better translations. And
[23:07] Speaker 2: then Matthew declaring, or at least someone in the name
[23:11] Speaker 2: of Matthew declaring, oh, this is a fulfillment of prophecy,
[23:14] Speaker 2: a prophecy that was effectively invented in the third century BC,
[23:19] Speaker 2: when the very approximate translation of this book place.
[23:23] Speaker 3: But you know, let's say she was, you know, she
[23:27] Speaker 3: did immaculately conceive. We're talking about an unwed teenager in
[23:31] Speaker 3: the early first century CE, wouldn't the Bethlehem height be
[23:35] Speaker 3: taking a dim view of that? Or did they lie
[23:38] Speaker 3: and act like Joseph was the baby daddy?
[23:41] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that is going to of course raise some eyebrows,
[23:45] Speaker 2: because yeah, a woman who is pregnant outside of wedlock
[23:47] Speaker 2: is at the very least going to be noticed. One
[23:51] Speaker 2: point of language, though, I do want to note, is
[23:54] Speaker 2: that the immaculate conception is a separate thing from the
[23:56] Speaker 2: virgin birth. The immaculate conception is that Mary was somehow
[23:59] Speaker 2: born without sin, so that way she could be a
[24:01] Speaker 2: pure vessel for the baby Jesus. Though this causes its
[24:04] Speaker 2: own theological problems because if Mary can just you know,
[24:07] Speaker 2: if God can just snap his fingers and say she
[24:09] Speaker 2: doesn't have sin anymore, it seems like Jesus didn't need
[24:12] Speaker 2: to come. God could have just snapped his fingers a
[24:14] Speaker 2: little bit louder and problem solved for the whole world.
[24:16] Speaker 2: But I'll leave that theological problem aside for now. It's
[24:20] Speaker 2: not like we have some other issues to deal with today.
[24:22] Speaker 2: But you're right, there is the contingent issue of how
[24:27] Speaker 2: is it that Mary could be pregnant outside of wedlock
[24:30] Speaker 2: and the town not noticing the best case scenario is
[24:34] Speaker 2: Joseph as quickly as possible puts a ring on it,
[24:37] Speaker 2: or the equivalent of putting a ring on it in
[24:39] Speaker 2: the first century. So that way, by the time Mary
[24:42] Speaker 2: is showing, it's not obvious that this took place before
[24:45] Speaker 2: the wedding. So that is the best case scenario in
[24:49] Speaker 2: this story.
[24:50] Speaker 3: Erin, did you grow up singing we three kings? There
[24:53] Speaker 3: were three and there were kings?
[24:56] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[24:56] Speaker 3: The problem is is that kings and three ain't in
[24:59] Speaker 3: the store, right.
[25:01] Speaker 2: Yes, I definitely knew the song growing up. Fortunately I
[25:04] Speaker 2: did not sing that because I would hurt everyone's ear drums.
[25:07] Speaker 2: That's a problem. I don't want to push onto the world.
[25:10] Speaker 2: We want world peace, and that would not happen if
[25:12] Speaker 2: I sing. Nonetheless, the idea that there are three kings
[25:17] Speaker 2: is much later tradition, the number three popping out primarily
[25:21] Speaker 2: because the wise men or magi depending on your translation,
[25:24] Speaker 2: who come to baby Jesus come with three gifts, so
[25:28] Speaker 2: you go from there. Now, there are other traditions where
[25:30] Speaker 2: there are different numbers of these wise men or a meji.
[25:34] Speaker 2: One of the other traditions is there as many as twelve,
[25:36] Speaker 2: sometimes just an uncountably large number just show up. But
[25:39] Speaker 2: three is our tradition based on the gifts, and calling
[25:42] Speaker 2: them kings is also a later tradition, probably riffing off
[25:47] Speaker 2: of I think it's Isaiah sixty that says kings will
[25:50] Speaker 2: come to your brightness, bringing gifts of gold and frankincense,
[25:54] Speaker 2: and so people make the connection. There's like, oh, Isaiah's
[25:57] Speaker 2: talking about kings, then these guys are also king somehow,
[26:01] Speaker 2: some way to be historically accurate, though, the Greek term
[26:06] Speaker 2: that is being used here by Matthew is magoy or magus,
[26:10] Speaker 2: and this refers to a cast of priests in the
[26:14] Speaker 2: Zoroastrian religion in Persia. So they were important to religion
[26:19] Speaker 2: and government and to kingship in Persia, but they were
[26:22] Speaker 2: not kings themselves. We have stories of them trying to
[26:25] Speaker 2: overthrow kings, but they were not themselves rulers in that way.
[26:30] Speaker 3: Let's talk physics, since this is your wheelhouse, the star
[26:34] Speaker 3: of bethlahemb They followed the star, and I was a
[26:37] Speaker 3: kid when I was growing up, I just pictured a
[26:39] Speaker 3: pin light and they just followed a pin light. But
[26:42] Speaker 3: if we're talking about a star now, I'm picturing them
[26:44] Speaker 3: following a giant orb of nuclear fusion burning at four
[26:49] Speaker 3: thousand degrees Calvin, that would have essentially incinerated everything on
[26:53] Speaker 3: the planet. Do you get into the star of bethlahemb.
[26:56] Speaker 2: Oh, Yes, very very much. And yeah, the conception of
[27:00] Speaker 2: star that exists in antiquity, especially for the authors of
[27:03] Speaker 2: this story, can't possibly be our conception. If you have
[27:07] Speaker 2: the idea of, yeah, a nuclear furnace coming down close
[27:10] Speaker 2: enough to point something out on the Earth, first off,
[27:13] Speaker 2: it's just not going to work. It's like taking a
[27:14] Speaker 2: beach ball and trying to point on a feature on
[27:17] Speaker 2: a marble. You're not going to be able to point
[27:19] Speaker 2: to a particular feature. And of course, the idea of
[27:21] Speaker 2: being close enough to even point to anything on Earth
[27:23] Speaker 2: with that would you know, incinerate everyone. So that star
[27:27] Speaker 2: cannot be how we understand things. So what is it
[27:31] Speaker 2: that Matthew is describing? For the vast majority of Christians
[27:36] Speaker 2: for millennia, it was pretty clear this is a miraculous object.
[27:40] Speaker 2: It's either a star being moved around in the heavens
[27:43] Speaker 2: by the will of God, or it's actually some sort
[27:45] Speaker 2: of angelic creature that is able to do its strange motions.
[27:48] Speaker 2: It's only in the late eighteenth early nineteenth century that
[27:54] Speaker 2: you start having people trying to explain things with astronomy
[27:57] Speaker 2: because the worst sorts of people in the world started
[28:01] Speaker 2: emerging in Europe. Dius coming in and saying, hey, all
[28:07] Speaker 2: that miracle stuff, we don't believe that We've got this
[28:10] Speaker 2: thing called physics. Now, especially from Isaac Newton, we see
[28:13] Speaker 2: the universe works really well with them, and these miracle
[28:16] Speaker 2: stories don't. And so there's all these new versions of
[28:20] Speaker 2: excusagenics that are developing at this time trying to combat
[28:24] Speaker 2: that problem and saying, hey, we think the Bible is true,
[28:27] Speaker 2: but we also believe the universe works on Newtonian physics,
[28:30] Speaker 2: because that's the universe that God has shown us and
[28:34] Speaker 2: because of our Lord and savior Isaac Newton, who was
[28:36] Speaker 2: born on December twenty fifth on the old British calendar.
[28:39] Speaker 2: Funny enough, So how do you reconcile the two? Oh,
[28:43] Speaker 2: we just misunderstood the story, or the readers or the
[28:46] Speaker 2: writers of the story kind of misinterpreted for us. And
[28:50] Speaker 2: if we go back and think what really happened consistent
[28:54] Speaker 2: with physics, Oh, it wasn't the case that, for example,
[28:57] Speaker 2: Jesus didn't walk on water What happened was it was
[29:00] Speaker 2: a dark and stormy night. The disciples were being slushed
[29:03] Speaker 2: around on their boat and they were actually beached and
[29:06] Speaker 2: couldn't tell that that had happened. So when Jesus was
[29:08] Speaker 2: walking along the shoreline, they thought, oh, my goodness, our
[29:11] Speaker 2: Lord and Savior is walking on water. Praise be. If
[29:14] Speaker 2: that sounds ridiculous, imagine repeating that thought process for every
[29:18] Speaker 2: single miracle in the Bible, and repeat that, of course
[29:22] Speaker 2: for the birth stories as well. Is it ridiculous? We
[29:25] Speaker 2: think so now, But it was a popular idea until
[29:28] Speaker 2: basically the eighteen twenties.
[29:30] Speaker 3: We are talking about I'll call it the Dark Ages,
[29:33] Speaker 3: even though it's a thousand years before. But we didn't
[29:36] Speaker 3: know anything about anything. Really. We didn't know what germs were, etc.
[29:41] Speaker 3: And of course we certainly didn't understand our place in
[29:43] Speaker 3: the cosmos. And this was a time where celestial deities
[29:46] Speaker 3: were a thing, right, I mean, we saw in fact,
[29:49] Speaker 3: many people, many mythesists, say that a lot of the
[29:52] Speaker 3: attributes of Jesus Christ to actually come out of previously
[29:55] Speaker 3: established celestial gods. So do you think the star was
[29:59] Speaker 3: part of the I mean, when I ask you, do
[30:01] Speaker 3: you know anything about the Star of Bethlehem. I'm not stupid.
[30:04] Speaker 3: He just held his book up. We've been friends for years.
[30:07] Speaker 3: I'm setting Aaron up to be able to answer the question. Okay,
[30:13] Speaker 3: I'm not lying, but I am doing what a host does.
[30:17] Speaker 3: But let's talk about the celestial deities or that sort
[30:20] Speaker 3: of we'll call it superstition of the day. Was there
[30:23] Speaker 3: an obsession with stars?
[30:26] Speaker 1: Oh?
[30:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a lot of belief in astrology, whether
[30:30] Speaker 2: it's to say what your fate is or that the
[30:33] Speaker 2: gods are somehow trying to signal things. There are also,
[30:37] Speaker 2: for example, in the magical Papyrity from roughly the same
[30:41] Speaker 2: time as the Gospels are being written, very very roughly,
[30:43] Speaker 2: one of the incantations you could have is you could
[30:47] Speaker 2: basically call down one of the stars and it would
[30:49] Speaker 2: appear in front of you as basically a little god
[30:51] Speaker 2: to do your commands. So you could literally wish on
[30:54] Speaker 2: a star in that kind of way, and you were
[30:57] Speaker 2: given the instructions for how to do that. I haven't
[31:00] Speaker 2: gone out to test that recently to see if I'll
[31:02] Speaker 2: have any luck, but probably the case that the ancient
[31:05] Speaker 2: incantation isn't going to make Venus move around or a
[31:08] Speaker 2: comet to appear and do something ominous. Now, how much
[31:13] Speaker 2: of this ultimately relates to the Jesus story. I want
[31:16] Speaker 2: to note that there is a lot of material out
[31:18] Speaker 2: there on the Internet claiming that Jesus is like a
[31:21] Speaker 2: copy of Mythris or Cyrus or things like that, and
[31:24] Speaker 2: the vast majority of the material is not reliable. Unfortunately,
[31:28] Speaker 2: if you want to take a mithesis position about Jesus,
[31:31] Speaker 2: most of the material you're going to encounter out there
[31:33] Speaker 2: is going to put you in the wrong direction, so
[31:37] Speaker 2: most of it throw it away. But are there quote
[31:41] Speaker 2: unquote pagan connections between the story that we have about
[31:44] Speaker 2: the star and Jesus. I'll give you one interesting example.
[31:48] Speaker 2: There are other guiding stars in grec Go Roman mythology.
[31:54] Speaker 2: Lots of different figures were claimed to have been led
[31:56] Speaker 2: by stars, and perhaps the most important and famous one
[32:00] Speaker 2: in Enius. Indius was supposed to been one of the
[32:03] Speaker 2: survivors of the city of Troy when it was destroyed,
[32:07] Speaker 2: and he and the remaining Trojans fled to Italy and
[32:11] Speaker 2: established the city of Rome and then ultimately the Roman Empire.
[32:14] Speaker 2: According to the most famous rendition of this story was
[32:17] Speaker 2: called the Aeneid by Virgil. This is written during the
[32:20] Speaker 2: reign of Caesar Augustus late first century BCE as far
[32:25] Speaker 2: as it's written, and it talks about a star appearing,
[32:31] Speaker 2: flashing over and helping them point them in the direction
[32:34] Speaker 2: of what their new homeland is going to be. And
[32:37] Speaker 2: our various sources tell us that yes, Venus or Aphrodite
[32:41] Speaker 2: came in the form of a star and led the
[32:43] Speaker 2: Trojans to their new homeland. Venus was also the mother
[32:48] Speaker 2: of Aneas, so literally, divine Mama was the guiding star
[32:54] Speaker 2: according to these stories, and a lot of connections then
[32:57] Speaker 2: between these group of people led by a bright star
[33:00] Speaker 2: from the west to the east to find a new kingdom,
[33:03] Speaker 2: very similar to these magi from the east led by
[33:05] Speaker 2: a star to find their newborn king. Seems like the
[33:09] Speaker 2: connections are pretty clear. And we do know of one
[33:11] Speaker 2: fourth century Christian woman who took the works of Eneas
[33:15] Speaker 2: and actually pretty much like cut them up, rearrange them
[33:18] Speaker 2: to tell the story of Jesus and uses that guiding
[33:21] Speaker 2: star trope as the way of talking about the birth
[33:24] Speaker 2: story of Jesus. So I'm not the only one who's
[33:25] Speaker 2: made that connection.
[33:26] Speaker 3: It's a good point that we need to be wary
[33:28] Speaker 3: of the Christ and other God's connections. We need to
[33:31] Speaker 3: proceed cautiously. I remember watching Bill Maher's movie Religulous, and
[33:35] Speaker 3: there was the horrors connection that was claimed, and I'm like, whoa, whoa. Well,
[33:39] Speaker 3: you know, a lot of that comes from the film Zeitgeist,
[33:43] Speaker 3: and the Zeitgeist was a problematic documentary. Is this weird
[33:46] Speaker 3: mix of some things that were true, but a lot
[33:48] Speaker 3: of things that were totally unsubstantiated are just wrong. And
[33:52] Speaker 3: yet in the meme verse it's hard to really sort
[33:55] Speaker 3: fact from fiction. I know that their Carrier and some
[33:58] Speaker 3: others have made correlations between Christ and Romulus and Perseus.
[34:02] Speaker 3: You know, Jesus was not the first deity born of
[34:04] Speaker 3: a virgin. He was not the first dying and rising god.
[34:08] Speaker 3: He wasn't even the first god to be crucified. Would
[34:11] Speaker 3: you agree, Jesus nothing new.
[34:14] Speaker 2: Yes, there is a lot of the Jesus story that
[34:17] Speaker 2: you can see is the same or very similar in
[34:21] Speaker 2: other mythologies. I also do want to note that you
[34:24] Speaker 2: mentioned Zeitgeist and one yeah, yeah, Deeze film is schist.
[34:29] Speaker 2: So that's the German I used to talk about Zeitgeist
[34:33] Speaker 2: and it has its own attempt to also explain the
[34:35] Speaker 2: Star of Bethlehem story. And I mean, not only is
[34:38] Speaker 2: its ancient sourcing about what the alignments they claim means
[34:42] Speaker 2: are not well established, but I also checked with some
[34:45] Speaker 2: planetarium software to be really sure. But it doesn't even
[34:48] Speaker 2: get the astronomy right. It literally shows alignments that are
[34:51] Speaker 2: astronomically impossible. So if you want to know how bad
[34:55] Speaker 2: zeitgeist is, it can't even get physical facts correctly, so
[34:58] Speaker 2: you definitely know it's not going to get mythology all
[35:01] Speaker 2: that great either. Now, conversely, are there stories of miraculous
[35:05] Speaker 2: births of divine heroes? Oh yeah, all over the world,
[35:09] Speaker 2: well before the time of Christianity. Do those stories exist?
[35:13] Speaker 2: Plenty of stories independent of Christianity develop their own stories
[35:16] Speaker 2: of miraculous births. And if you want to say it's
[35:18] Speaker 2: without sex, there are versions of that as well that
[35:21] Speaker 2: kind of imply those sorts of things for the births
[35:23] Speaker 2: of important heroes. I think even Plato it talks about
[35:26] Speaker 2: basically a spirit like wishing in to give birth to him,
[35:30] Speaker 2: rather than the old fashioned methodology of how you bake
[35:33] Speaker 2: people people you know, coming back from the dead. Oh yeah,
[35:36] Speaker 2: plenty common there plenty of examples of that, the records
[35:40] Speaker 2: we have for Romulus, that there are supposed to be
[35:42] Speaker 2: all these poor mortem sightings of him, including on the
[35:46] Speaker 2: Way of Rhodes, and somehow not recognize him at first,
[35:48] Speaker 2: and all of the sudden, oh goodness, I just realized
[35:50] Speaker 2: I bumped into my old buddy Romulus. Here we better
[35:52] Speaker 2: go and be virtuous as he just told us to do,
[35:54] Speaker 2: because he's actually this super ancient god and now is
[35:57] Speaker 2: giving us instructions how to build a great new empire.
[36:00] Speaker 2: If that doesn't sound at least a little bit familiar,
[36:02] Speaker 2: you might want to go double check what your Bible says.
[36:05] Speaker 3: We've got more to talk about with doctor Aaron Adair,
[36:08] Speaker 3: physicist and author of the book The Star of Bethlehem,
[36:11] Speaker 3: a Skeptical View. Hang on. Thanks for being a supporter
[36:21] Speaker 3: of this broadcast via Patreon. If you like what you
[36:24] Speaker 3: hear and you'd like to get the show commercial free
[36:26] Speaker 3: in a couple of days early Mostly, if you just
[36:28] Speaker 3: want to be a supporter of the broadcast, thank you
[36:31] Speaker 3: so much, go to patreon dot com slash Seth Andrews.
[36:36] Speaker 3: Continuing now my conversation with author and scientist and Nativity
[36:42] Speaker 3: story researcher doctor Aaron Adair. We'd like to talk a
[36:48] Speaker 3: lot about that, leaning back into the Old Testament, Noah's ark.
[36:51] Speaker 3: Of course, in a thousand years before the epic of
[36:54] Speaker 3: guild commissions, so many parallels these Samerian myths, so many
[36:58] Speaker 3: of them cousins and happily so it wasn't even plagiarism.
[37:02] Speaker 3: It's just like, well, my religion needs a flood myth,
[37:05] Speaker 3: and so they're sort of borrowed and changed and altered
[37:08] Speaker 3: and manicured to fit whatever deity is in question. I'm
[37:11] Speaker 3: going to give you an open canvas here. What else
[37:13] Speaker 3: about the Nativity story do you find interesting, relevant, alarming?
[37:18] Speaker 3: What do you got?
[37:20] Speaker 2: I'll start with the alarming. I mentioned that it was
[37:23] Speaker 2: up until like the eighteen twenties that it was popular
[37:25] Speaker 2: in biblical studies to try to rationalize the mythology away,
[37:29] Speaker 2: to say, oh, they just misunderstood what they were seeing,
[37:31] Speaker 2: or we just totally misread this as miraculous. But the
[37:35] Speaker 2: thing is, even though biblical studies pretty much has dropped
[37:38] Speaker 2: this as an approach to studying these things for roughly
[37:43] Speaker 2: two hundred years, it's still been rather popular in more
[37:46] Speaker 2: science or science popularization circles. If you go to a
[37:50] Speaker 2: planetarium this time of year, especially here in the US
[37:52] Speaker 2: of A, you will almost certainly have a show that
[37:55] Speaker 2: tries to describe Oh, here's how astronomy describes the story.
[37:58] Speaker 2: And to be alarming to you, how many of the
[38:01] Speaker 2: people working on that planetarium actually believe they show that
[38:05] Speaker 2: they are putting on And I can tell you it's
[38:07] Speaker 2: actually a minority. Most of them think it's bs and
[38:11] Speaker 2: they show it because it puts butts and seats and
[38:12] Speaker 2: it gives them a chance to talk about some astronomical topics.
[38:16] Speaker 2: I'm like, here are the winter constellations. Here's what it
[38:18] Speaker 2: looks like when planets move about. Here's what retrograde motion is.
[38:22] Speaker 2: Here's what comments are, Here's how they're different than supernov
[38:24] Speaker 2: So you can talk a lot of science topics, but
[38:26] Speaker 2: what are people there for. They're here here to tell
[38:29] Speaker 2: us how science has proven how awesome Jesus is. So
[38:33] Speaker 2: within the planetarium community, so they talk about the Star
[38:36] Speaker 2: of Bethlehem in an interesting way, and I'll show you
[38:38] Speaker 2: by the cover. So I had gotten this book signed
[38:41] Speaker 2: by the Neil deGrasse Tyson some years ago, and he,
[38:45] Speaker 2: of course, you know, does the Hayden Planetarium there in
[38:47] Speaker 2: New York City. But he also pointed out something that
[38:49] Speaker 2: other planetarium operators have done circling soob yeah, that's how
[38:55] Speaker 2: we refer to it within the planetarium community. It's a
[38:57] Speaker 2: son of a bee. That's the add for this. But
[39:00] Speaker 2: yet we keep presenting it over and over again. Papers
[39:02] Speaker 2: still keep coming out claiming, oh, we've figured out how
[39:04] Speaker 2: astronomy explains it this time, and unfortunately know they haven't.
[39:09] Speaker 2: And the proof of that I provide in detail in
[39:12] Speaker 2: this book and other publications I have. Now what's interesting
[39:16] Speaker 2: is there are still things worth pursuing in this By that,
[39:19] Speaker 2: I mean, did the author of the story just you know,
[39:23] Speaker 2: have a fever dream one night and wrote this down
[39:26] Speaker 2: or does he have some sort of previous source about
[39:29] Speaker 2: these kinds of things, and is his source even more
[39:33] Speaker 2: magical or mythological. That's something I'm exploring and working in
[39:36] Speaker 2: publications suggesting the original story is even more supernatural than
[39:41] Speaker 2: the homing GPS beacon of the Star of Bethlhem.
[39:45] Speaker 3: You're working on a book, what is that?
[39:47] Speaker 2: So there are a couple of articles right now that
[39:50] Speaker 2: are going through the peer review process as we speak,
[39:52] Speaker 2: touching on certain things, highlighting in particular one of our
[39:55] Speaker 2: earliest interpreters of the Star of Bethlehem story that the
[39:59] Speaker 2: way I read him, he's not actually treating this literally,
[40:02] Speaker 2: even though everyone thought he had for you know, a
[40:04] Speaker 2: long time. And then I realized, oh, if you kind of,
[40:06] Speaker 2: you know, look underneath what he's trying to say, he's
[40:09] Speaker 2: actually talking about this more mythological version of Jesus is
[40:12] Speaker 2: the Star. If you, for example, flip to Revelation, it says, well,
[40:17] Speaker 2: not only it says Jesus in the book where Revelation
[40:20] Speaker 2: says I am the bright morning Star. And I think
[40:24] Speaker 2: some of that ideology is in the background of the
[40:27] Speaker 2: Star Bethlehem story, where it's not a homing beacon to
[40:30] Speaker 2: find Jesus, the star is Jesus.
[40:34] Speaker 3: You got any final thoughts of punctuation mark for our
[40:37] Speaker 3: conversation about the Christmas holiday.
[40:40] Speaker 2: When you go and look at a Christmas tree this
[40:43] Speaker 2: time of year, take a look at the topper of
[40:45] Speaker 2: that tree. It's probably either an angel or a star,
[40:49] Speaker 2: representing the Star of Bethlehem. And as much as I
[40:52] Speaker 2: wish that star were something that we could describe with
[40:55] Speaker 2: the tools of science and physics, it's better to understand
[40:59] Speaker 2: this story as created by craftsmanship with words than with
[41:05] Speaker 2: instruments of technology. And if we understand the story that way,
[41:09] Speaker 2: as storytelling rather than history making, You've got to understand
[41:13] Speaker 2: Christmas a lot better and not we so much time
[41:17] Speaker 2: on things that aren't real.
[41:19] Speaker 3: I'm an atheist who enjoys the Christmas holiday. It's just
[41:22] Speaker 3: what we call the holiday. I'm not threatened by the
[41:25] Speaker 3: myth of Jesus or any of the other things, whether
[41:27] Speaker 3: it's pagan or something else. And I think there are
[41:30] Speaker 3: roughly a little under a dozen different holidays associated with
[41:33] Speaker 3: November three January. Knock yourself out. Christmas is what you
[41:37] Speaker 3: make it or skip it out right? And does that
[41:41] Speaker 3: get weird? When I talk to some people, especially some
[41:43] Speaker 3: of the hardliner atheists out there, they're like, why in
[41:46] Speaker 3: the world would you do anything to commemorate or validate Jesus?
[41:52] Speaker 3: You know that kind of thing. Do you can pushback
[41:54] Speaker 3: from that, Aaron.
[41:56] Speaker 2: I don't get that too much, but I would say this,
[41:59] Speaker 2: the best way to push back against theocracy or the
[42:04] Speaker 2: use of these tools for more nefarious ends is make
[42:07] Speaker 2: it something part of your own tradition that is not
[42:11] Speaker 2: actually religious. That's secular functionally. In so many ways, Christmas
[42:15] Speaker 2: is already secular, and by you celebrating it in a
[42:18] Speaker 2: secular way, you are actually taking power away from the
[42:21] Speaker 2: theocrats who are trying to use it to bash them
[42:23] Speaker 2: over the head. If you can basically go and say
[42:25] Speaker 2: I'm going to celebrate Christmas without having to sing hymns,
[42:30] Speaker 2: you are the one taking the power. You are powerful
[42:33] Speaker 2: by being a Christmas lover without being a Christian.
[42:36] Speaker 3: I do enjoy I'm not vocal about it, but I
[42:39] Speaker 3: do enjoy walking through the house of a devout Christian
[42:41] Speaker 3: going non Christian tradition, not obviously pagan. I know that's
[42:45] Speaker 3: not anything to do with I mean, the best stuff
[42:48] Speaker 3: about Christmas has nothing to do with the virgin birth
[42:52] Speaker 3: a super baby come to save the world from the
[42:55] Speaker 3: doom that that God created. Blah blah blah. I mean,
[42:58] Speaker 3: we're talking about gifts, music, and food and family and memories,
[43:02] Speaker 3: connection and you know, I mean, the best stuff about
[43:04] Speaker 3: Christmas has almost nothing to do with christ. I don't
[43:09] Speaker 3: think that's an overreach, Aaron, do you. Oh?
[43:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely not. I mean, if you go and
[43:13] Speaker 2: you look at a crash, most of the things in
[43:15] Speaker 2: there aren't even from the Bible, they're from later traditions.
[43:19] Speaker 2: That there is a donkey and an ass. Sorry, there's
[43:22] Speaker 2: a donkey and an ox there that's actually in a
[43:26] Speaker 2: later tradition, and claiming, oh, this was also fulfilled prophecy.
[43:29] Speaker 2: That book also talks about Baby Jesus taming dragons, and
[43:33] Speaker 2: I would love to see dragons as part of a
[43:35] Speaker 2: Nativity scene. Maybe next year. But yeah, it's so much
[43:39] Speaker 2: of what we do these traditions is completely separate from
[43:43] Speaker 2: any religious orthodoxy. And also for the longest time, I
[43:47] Speaker 2: should note I'm in the Boston area. This area used
[43:50] Speaker 2: to ban Christmas because it was too haughty. It was
[43:53] Speaker 2: too much of a drunken festival of people going around
[43:56] Speaker 2: knocking on doors of rich people demanding more food and alcohol.
[43:59] Speaker 2: And if that's not a good winter time tradition, I
[44:01] Speaker 2: don't know.
[44:02] Speaker 3: It is the faces of Christians when you tell them
[44:04] Speaker 3: that they live in the only nation on earth that
[44:07] Speaker 3: has ever banned Christmas, or at least it was Massachusetts.
[44:11] Speaker 3: I think at least yep, that's what you say, Hey, colony,
[44:13] Speaker 3: get back in the eighteen hundreds, and I just think, eh,
[44:16] Speaker 3: hashtag irony. Doctor Aaron Adair, hold your book up again,
[44:20] Speaker 3: because I'm shameless. The Star of Bethlehem a skeptical view
[44:26] Speaker 3: which I will link in the description box. Always fun
[44:29] Speaker 3: to talk to you. Thanks for helping us navigate through
[44:32] Speaker 3: and occasionally dissect the Nativity story, the activity myth, and
[44:36] Speaker 3: I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday, my friend, Thank.
[44:40] Speaker 2: You, and Merry Christmas to everyone. And if you're not
[44:42] Speaker 2: going to celebrate Christmas, be merry no matter what. This
[44:45] Speaker 2: is a good time of year.
[44:46] Speaker 1: Follow The Thanking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
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[45:01] Speaker 1: and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.

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