Presenting biblical answers to tough questions

Q: What do we know about the Christmas star?

  A:  The term “star” in the Bible can refer to any small heavenly body. Shooting stars, planets and galaxies would have all been referred to as stars in biblical times, because they all look the same to the naked eye. The sun and moon would not have been thought of as stars, even though we now know that the sun is a kind of star, it wasn’t called a star in Bible times. So then, when the magi claimed to have seen the star of the newborn king of the Jews, shooting stars, galaxies, planets, a...