NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The Star of Bethlehem and Navigation
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2009 Jan 5, 17:37 -0800
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2009 Jan 5, 17:37 -0800
Hello Dieter, you wrote: "At first, the idea that the magi could have used the Star of Bethlehem for navigation did not make any sense to me." I agree. It wasn't any form of celestial navigation, even in the most primitive sense. Only an object at low altitude, like a meteor, could uniquely mark a location like a specific town, but no low-altitude phenomena last long enough to fit the description of the Star of B. And you wrote: "what _was_ "navigation" in ancient times?" Even in recent times (as recently as 150 years ago), navigation has had two meanings. There's the modern meaning of finding and projecting one's position in order to reach a specific destination, and then there's a broader meaning that today would be closer to piloting or even just sailing. So in a 19th century text, if you see a phrase like "our navigational skills were tested on the voyage across the Atlantic," it's possible that it's referring to position-finding (the modern meaning of navigation and the one we're talking about on NavList) but's more likely that "navigational skills" means "seamanship" --the general set of skills that keeps you alive and safe on the voyage. As for the magi, counting something like "they told us to go to Bethlehem" or "prophecy suggests Bethlehem" as navigation would stretch the modern meaning of navigation to the breaking point. And: "When they departed from Bethlehem, they did not return to Herod but were instructed in a dream to take a different road. Is this a kind of navigation?" Probably not for this group! :-) As long as there is some connection to celestial navigation and/or issues in positional astronomy, this thread is a reasonable extension of topics we've discussed here before. But navigating by dreams? Whoa there. Let's not. -FER --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---