His Star, the real story of the Bethlehem Star

Presentation Disclaimer and Q&A Instructions

Okay, bear with me. All right. Okay, so just as a disclaimer, especially because we might have some new people here tonight, so we just want to remind everybody that while Dr. Lyle is doing his presentation, we ask that you keep yourselves muted and also keep your camera off, and so then that avoids any distractions.

If you're on Zoom or if you're watching along with us on Facebook and you have questions for Dr. Lyle during his presentation, you can post them into the chats of those platforms, and then at the end, we'll do a live Q &A, and I'll ask him the questions that you have.

Creation Fellowship Santee and Tonight's Speaker

So with that, let's go ahead and get started. I'm Terri Camerizal here with Creation Fellowship Santee, and we're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account, as told in Genesis, is a true depiction of how God created the universe and all life from nothing in just six days a few thousand years ago.

We've been meeting most Thursday nights here on Zoom since June of 2020. We've been blessed with presentations by pastors, teachers, doctors, cartoonists, scientists, prophecy speakers, apologists, and all around smarty pants people who love the Lord and have a message to share.

You can find most of our past videos by searching Creation Fellowship Santee, that's S-A-N-T-E-E, on YouTube. You can also find us on BitChute as Creation Fellowship and on Rumble as CFS 2020. And our Creation Fellowship Santee Facebook page is where we have most of our videos that we live streamed and also where you can find upcoming events.

You can also send an email to creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com so that you're on our speaker list. And um we are blessed again to have Dr. Jason Lyle with us. Dr. Lyle almost needs no introduction because for one thing we've introduced him a couple of times before.

He's a returned speaker and you can find a lot of his work online, but we do want to make sure that you understand why he has the authority to speak about his topic tonight. So he is an astrophysicist.

He graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder and he loves the Lord and has been serving him in Creation Apologetics Ministries for quite some time now. He has his own ministry which he started in 2017.

It's the Biblical Science Institute and you can find more about his him and his ministry there. It's thebiblicalscienceinstitute .com, right? Dr. Lyle .com. And Dr. Lyle has written a number of books including Taking Back Astronomy and also A Stargazer's Guide to the Night Sky and on several other topics like the Hermeneutics of Genesis or Logic or even his newest work which is Math and Patterns.

It's his Fractals book. So with that we're happy to have him come for a Christmastime presentation tonight called His Star. All right well thank you for having me back.

Matthew 2 and the Question of the Bethlehem Star

And so again this is a fun topic this time of year. A lot of times people will ask what about the star that appeared and led the magi, the wise men, to Christ. What was it and you know can we make sense of that?

Is there a scientific explanation for that? So what I wanted to do this evening is just take a look at Matthew chapter 2. If you have your Bibles with you, you might go ahead and open up to Matthew chapter 2.

This is where we find the account of the magi coming to the young Christ. And I want to try to answer the question this evening. What was the star that guided the wise men to Christ, that guided the magi?

And again this is found in Matthew chapter 2. What I'd like to do is read the first 16 verses of that chapter in its entirety just so we have kind of the entire account fresh in our mind. And then I'll go back through and just kind of give a little bit of background and just exegete the passage really.

Just see what things we can figure out. This is something that we're supposed to do as Christians. We're supposed to read God's word and then we're supposed to think about it and piece things together and build our worldview on what God has said in his word.

And the Christmas star is a great way to do that. So let's go ahead and take a look at Matthew chapter 2 beginning in verse 1. It says, now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. And when Herod the king heard it, he was troubled in all Jerusalem with him. And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born.

And they said to him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet and you Bethlehem land of Judah are by no means least among the leaders of Judah for out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Then Herod secretly called the magi and ascertained from them the time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and make careful search for the child. And when you have found him report to me that I too may come and worship him.

And having heard the king, they went their way and lo the star, which they had seen in the east went on before them until it came and stood over where the child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

And they came into the house and saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him and opening their treasures. They presented to him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their own country by another way.

Now, when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, arise and take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.

And he arose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt and was there until the death of Herod that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled saying, out of Egypt did I call my son.

Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Magi, he became very enraged and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs from two years old and under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the Magi.

So there we have the passage. It's an amazing part of history. It's something that's just try to put yourself into it. It's very exciting to think about that. And so let's just go back through, back to verse one and just kind of go through this.

And I'll spend a lot of time on verse one because I want to give some background information that I think will be helpful in trying to understand what is going on here. I mean, we have the basic picture now, but are there any details we can fill in by logically analyzing these verses?

Herod the Great and the Political Danger to the Child King

And so let's go back to verse one, which begins now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem. You probably know that's just because of our common Christian heritage that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem means house of bread.

And it's very fitting that the bread of life who comes down from heaven should be born in the house of bread, a town that was named that. There's a lot of things like that in scripture, names that are very fitting and appropriate for the narrative that God is telling us.

And of course, this was in the days of Herod the king, it says. Now this is Herod the great. The thing you need to know about Herod the great is he's he's incredibly wicked. He bribed his way to power.

He's not a descendant of David. He doesn't have a legal right to the throne. He's not Jewish by ancestry. He is Jewish by profession. And he bribed his way to become king in Jerusalem. Now at this time, the Roman empire had conquered the entire world.

And so Jerusalem, all Judea was a subordinate nation that had to pay tribute to Rome. And there was Caesar, of course, was in charge of all that. But Rome allowed nations to keep their own kings in many cases.

But Herod was able to weasel his way into power. He was a very wicked man. He executed his own wife and two of his sons. Of course, we know from this very account that he murdered every boy under the age of two from Bethlehem, so as not to have competition from a toddler, because he wanted to be king of the Jews.

And he doesn't want this toddler, somebody who's born king of the Jews to compete with him. So he executes children, which is very wicked, of course. One of his own sons tried to poison him. So he wasn't a particularly good father.

On his deathbed, he knew he was going to die. And so he ordered all of the leaders of Israel to be rounded up and they were imprisoned with instructions that when he died, they were to be executed. That way, there would be mourning in Israel at the death of Herod.

Now, fortunately, his order was not carried out. But nonetheless, that gives you a feel for the wickedness of this leader. And he's the one who is in charge of Judah at this point. And so that gives you a feel for the wicked environment into which God places his infant son.

If this were a that would be just a captivating opening. Just think about the wickedness and the that's a worrisome place to be to be a righteous person at that time. And so then there are these Magi from the East.

Magi, it's where we get the word magic. They were scholars of the ancient world. We think they were from Persia. And in fact, the Magi is the Persian word meaning priests. And of course, Judah itself had been taken captive by Babylon, Babylon, part of Persia.

And so that gives us the context of these of these priests. They're more than just religious priests. They're scholars of the ancient world. Again, the area around Babylon and so on, the Persian. Now, Persia is about a thousand miles due east of Jerusalem.

Okay. And so they're at the same latitude, but it's about a thousand miles away. But it's an extensive region. Babylon's a little closer. It's on sort of the Western rim of the Persia area. So who are these Magi then?

The Magi, Daniel, and the Prophecy of the Messiah

Well, according to the historian Philo, he describes the Magi as quote, men who gave themselves to the study of nature and contemplation of the divine perfections worthy of being the counselors of kings.

And so these were, again, the scholars of the ancient world, the scientists of the ancient world, the counselors of the ancient world. If a king wanted to know when the next eclipse was going to happen, he would consult with one of the Magi, or when sunrise would be and so on.

The Magi could perform those kinds of calculations. We don't know to what accuracy, but they would have been knowledgeable of astronomy, of chemistry, and at the level that was possible about at that time.

And they're sort of a jack of all trades. At that time in history, you could know all the different sciences because, of course, we didn't know as much about the world as we do today. Today, you have to specialize.

So much is known scientifically that scientists specialize in a particular field. And even my own field of astrophysics, we know so much. I've specialized in solar subsurface supergranulation and so on.

It's a very specific field. But back then, less was known. And so you could know a little bit about all the sciences and astronomy in particular. The astronomy was very important in the ancient world because you needed to know when to plant, when to harvest, and so on.

And you needed to know how to read the stars to be able to do that in terms of, I mean, that's the purpose for them being created, to be for signs, seasons, days, and years, to help us keep track of time.

And the Magi would have been very knowledgeable of that field in particular. And so that kind of leads us into why one of the reasons why they noticed this particular star when it seems like most other people didn't.

How many Magi? Well, if you've seen the Christmas cards, you know there were three. But of course, the Bible doesn't actually say there were three. It just says Magi. There's at least two because Magi is a plural word.

Magus would be the singular. So there's at least two, but there were probably many. There were probably a lot more than three. The reason some people think there were three is because they presented three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

But that doesn't mean that were just three people. There were many Magi. Now, maybe not all of them made the trip. Maybe just a smaller group of them made the trip. We don't know. But there were probably many.

And they traveled with their own personal army. So this was not three people on camels. This would have been a caravan and more likely riding on horses than camels. The Persians were accomplished horsemen.

And so they would have had their own army with them traveling through the region in between Persia and Jerusalem. So it would take quite a bit of time depending on how fast they traveled. It takes a little while to travel a thousand miles in the ancient world, even by horseback.

The Magi had the power to depose kings. And this is relevant because we're going to find that Herod is very troubled when they come. And now we're beginning to understand why. If there was a dispute about who was the rightful king, the Magi could be called upon to settle that dispute.

And their decision was binding. And they had their own personal army to be able to enforce that decision. So you can imagine how Herod was feeling when these Magi arrive. And they're asking about the king of the Jews, not Herod, the real king of the Jews, right?

The one who's been born king of the Jews. And so you can imagine that's got Herod a little bit worried. Are they here to depose Herod? Or, you know, what's going to happen? Are they going to remove him and install this child as the king of the Jews?

Especially considering the fact that Herod did not have a legal right to the throne. You can imagine why he might be concerned about that. It's very significant that Matthew records men from the east following the star who were looking for the king of the Jews.

And these, of course, these would have been Gentiles from a pagan nation, but the Jews weren't looking. And that's a real indictment on the majority of the Jews at that time. Matthew, well, each of the gospels gives us a different, records different events around the time of Christ.

I mean, some of them record the same events, but from a different perspective. That's a wonderful gift because each of the gospel authors has a sort of theme in mind. And so he records the events that are pertinent to that theme.

And by reading all the gospels, we have a very rich picture of what happened at the time of Christ's earthly incarnation. And so Matthew in particular focuses on Christ's kingly office as the son of David.

And so he's the rightful king of the Jews. And so you can see why Matthew records this event. The other gospels do not record anything about the star that guided the or the Magi at all. But this really is a judgment against Israel for rejecting their own Messiah.

Well, the Gentiles accept him. The Gentiles come looking for the king of the Jews. The Jews are not looking for the king of the Jews. And of course, if you think about it, it was the chief priests who wanted Christ dead at the time of his crucifixion, of course.

Jesus himself had some not so nice things to say about the leadership of the Jews at that time. In the temple, he overturns the table. We read about that. We read about in Matthew 21, 19, we read about the fig tree.

Remember that Jesus came to the fig tree. God had created fig trees to produce fruit. Jesus was hungry. He goes to the fig tree to collect some of that fruit, but there isn't any fruit on it. And so he cursed it because it wasn't doing what God created it to do, and therefore it immediately withered.

And by the next day, it withered away. And so because it wasn't doing what God commanded it to do, and the link there is obvious that the Israel as a nation was not doing what God commanded it to do. They weren't acting like God's people.

God had chosen Israel in the ancient world to represent his people. Not that every Jew was saved, not that every Jew was a believer in God, but a lot of them were. And that nation was supposed to represent what it means to serve Yahweh, the living God.

And the Israelites at the time of Christ's incarnation, very few of them, I mean, there were some Jews that received him as Lord and Savior, but very few did. And again, we see that throughout Matthew.

In Matthew chapter 21, we read about the parable of the landowner. And you remember the parable, the landowner, he goes away on a trip and he has his servants work the field, and then he sends people to collect the produce, but they kill him.

They beat one stone, the next, and then he finally says, I'll send my son. And what do they do? They kill the son. And Jesus asks his disciples, what do you think the landowner will do when he comes? And he says, you'll put those wretches to a wretched end.

And the connection is obvious that that represented the Jewish leaders at the time of Christ's earthly ministry. They were not serving God the way they were supposed to. And therefore they missed, they had an opportunity to go and worship Christ, to see the living God as a toddler.

And they missed it. Whereas these Gentiles from a pagan nation, because they had a repentant heart and they offered, and they came and worshiped this young Christ. So this really is a scathing indictment on the unbelieving Jews at that time, to the point that some liberal scholars have said, well, Matthew's anti-Semitic, he's anti-Jew.

Well, Matthew was a Jew, so he's not going to be anti-Semitic, but he's just pointing out that the majority of Jews were unbelievers at this time. They were not looking for the Messiah and they should have been.

And so they are shown up by Gentiles from a pagan nation. A lot more I could say on that. Matthew 23, a scathing indictment of the religious leaders at that time. Matthew 24, Jesus points out that the temple will be destroyed as an indication that Israel is no longer God's chosen people.

It's only those who have trusted in him for salvation that are his people. So more could be said on that, but I think it is very relevant. And this is one of the reasons why Matthew records this account in the other gospels.

They're focused on different things, but Matthew shows that it's one of the great ironies of scripture, that it was the Gentiles who followed the star and got to see God in the flesh and worship him. And most of the Jews missed it.

They missed out. Now it should be obvious from this that the Magi apparently had some knowledge of the Bible. They were looking for the King of the Jews. So how did they know that? Well, recall Judah had been captured by Babylon 500 years prior to this.

And so there was a Jewish influence there. Babylon itself had a massive library. The Magi, they had their own, they were scholars. They had their own library. And certainly some of the books on that library would have been books from the Jews, the Jewish scriptures that had been left behind when they, at the time that then they returned back to Judea, some of those books would have been retained in that library.

And of course, and we read about in Daniel, Daniel took place during the time of the captivity in Babylon. And in fact, Daniel chapter five, verses 11 and 12, Daniel, he rose to power and he was actually appointed chief of the magicians, chief of the Magi.

So Daniel himself was the leader of the Magi at the time in which Daniel lived at the time of the captivity in Babylon. So now don't you think that Daniel would have shared his faith in the living God with these other Magi?

Perhaps many of them were not Jews. They were just Babylonians from the area, but nonetheless, Daniel was a Magi and the leader of them at one point. So no doubt they had knowledge of at least some of the scriptures and certainly Daniel's scriptures.

And Daniel himself, of course, we read in his prophecy, there's the prophecy of the 70 weeks, which these are weeks of years, 77s literally, or 490 years, the time between when a certain decree was issued and when the Messiah would come.

And so Daniel knew when the Messiah would come. And therefore the Magi, who are the spiritual successors of Daniel, albeit centuries later, they would have had access to his writings. And so they knew the approximate time that the Messiah would come.

But how did they know that the star represented Christ? Well, we'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. So it's interesting too, that these Magi arrive in Jerusalem, not in Bethlehem. And so, you know, we have this Christmas card picture of the star leading them to Christ, and I believe it eventually did.

But it seems to me that at this particular time, the star was not guiding them for whatever reason, because they are in the wrong city. Now, if the star appeared over Christ, which I believe it did, we'll come to that passage shortly.

If it appeared over Christ, and they're in Persia, they can see that the star is over the land of Judah, over Israel, the remaining tribe of Israel. But Jerusalem and Bethlehem, you can't distinguish them because they're so close together.

They're only a few miles apart. And so from Persia, you can't tell if it's over Jerusalem or Bethlehem. There would be no way to know that. They just knew it was somewhere in Israel. And apparently by the time they arrived in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem would make sense, it's the capital city, where else would you find the king of the Jews, except in the capital city, that would make sense.

So you can see why they would go there if the star were not guiding them at the time. Why wasn't it guiding them at the time? I don't know, maybe clouds, maybe it faded for a little while. For whatever reason, in God's sovereignty, the star apparently was not guiding them.

And so they arrive in Jerusalem, and they ask this question, where is he who's been born king of the Jews? For we saw a star in the east, and we've come to worship him. They don't ask if the king of the Jews has been born, they ask where.

There's no doubt in their mind, he's been born. So that's interesting, perhaps again they had access to the documents that Daniel had left, and they knew about the 70 weeks, they knew the time was right.

And somehow they knew that this star signified his birth. It's interesting too, this little phrase, he who has been born king of the Jews. We take that for granted because we hear it every Christmas, but it's a very unusual phrase, because most people are not born king.

You might be born heir to the throne, but you're not installed as a king when you're a baby or a toddler. You have to come of age first. But that's not the case with Jesus, because he's always existed.

He's already the Lord, you see. And so as soon as he comes, he's installed as king. He's already the rightful king of the Jews. He is a descendant of David, he has the right to the throne. And it says, for we have seen his star in the east.

And I think that's interesting, that they call it his star. They don't give it a name. They don't call it Jupiter. They don't call it Venus. They don't call it a comet. They don't call it a star. We've seen his star, the star of the Messiah, God's star.

Now, of course, all stars belong to God. They're all his stars. He made them. He spoke them into existence. But there must be something very special about this star, that it's the star of the Messiah.

And that's something that's going help us to clue in what this might have been. Because it's not something that has a common name, apparently. It's his star. It's the star of the Messiah. But how do they know that?

How do they know it was his star? We'll come back to that. We saw his star in the east. And this little phrase is interesting, because it's a little bit ambiguous. What do they mean, we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him?

There's two ways you can interpret that. It could mean, we saw his star in the eastern sky. That is, we were looking east, and we saw the star in the east. Or it could mean, when we were in the east, we saw the star, without giving the location of the star.

And you can see how either of those could be read into that sentence. For we saw his star when we were in the east, or we saw his star in the eastern sky. Which is it? And there's another possibility I'll throw in, in a moment.

But if we take the position that we saw his star in the eastern sky, which seems, at least in English, to be the more natural reading, then there's this perplexing dilemma. Because Persia is east of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

And so if they're in the east, and they see a star that's in the east, why did they go west? Right? It doesn't make any sense. We saw his star in the east, and said, hey, let's go the opposite way. Let's go west.

How does that work? If they saw his star in the eastern sky, why did go west toward Jerusalem? That's an issue. And that might make you think, well, maybe the other interpretations better, that we being in the east saw the star.

But there is actually another possibility. And this bothered me for years, until I had enough knowledge to go back and look at the Greek. And in the original Greek language, that phrase in the east, the literal translation of that is actually at its rising.

At its rising. So they're really saying, we saw his star at its rising. Now, why did the King James and New American Standard and several other translations translate that phrase in the east? And the answer is, because in the ancient world, at its rising, was a figure of speech, meaning in the east.

Because the sun rises in the east. And so if you wanted to say, I'm from the east, I'm from the rising, I'm from the sunrise. That makes sense. From the west, I'm from the sunset. The sun rises in the east.

And not just the sun, the moon rises in the east. And all stars rise in the east. And so you can see how those two, how that would be a very natural figure of speech indicating in the east. Now, you might say, well, what does it matter then, if we saw a star in the east at its rising?

Because normally, it doesn't matter. If I said to you, I saw the sun rising this morning, you can bet I saw it in the east, in the eastern sky. If I said, I saw the sun in the east, you know, I saw it while it was rising, because the sun is always in the east when it's rising, and it's always rising when it's in the east.

They're interchangeable. And likewise with the moon. If you see the moon in the east, it's rising. If you see the moon rising, it'll be in the east. So what does it matter? Well, it matters because this star may not be like other stars in the universe.

And in fact, if it rose in the west, over Israel, that would be highly unusual, because natural stars do not do that. And so I'm going to suggest, and we'll see there are verses later on that we'll see, that this particular star actually rose from the perspective of Persia, it rose in the west over Israel.

And they did follow it toward Israel, toward Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Again, it would be indistinguishable which of the two to go to. So probably the best translation of this particular phrase, for we saw his star at its rising.

And in fact, some Bible translations do translate it that way. The ESV and the NLV both translate it at its rising. So they're seeing his star not in the eastern sky, but at the time that it rose, which may not have been in the eastern sky, it might have been in the west.

And if it was, that would indicate there's something very, very unusual about this star. It's different from the other ones. But how did they know it belonged to the Messiah? How did they know this was the Messiah star, that this was the star indicating the birth of the King of the Jews?

And again, I think they might have had access to the scriptures, they almost certainly would have, because they were the scholars of the ancient world. And they would have known about Numbers chapter 24, verse 17, which is Balaam's prophecy.

Balaam's prophecy, I'm going to read just the middle of it, which says, a star will come out of Jacob, a scepter will rise out of Israel. This is a prophecy of the coming Messiah. And it uses this poetic parallelism to indicate that a king is going to come forth from Israel, from Jacob, and Judah in particular, the remaining tribe of Israel at that time.

And it's interesting, it uses the scepter, a scepter is a symbol of a king, but it also uses a star. Interesting. Now, if you take that verse literally, at least the first part of it, a star will come out of Jacob or Israel.

That might have been exactly what happened, there might have been a star that rose over Israel. And from the perspective of Persia, that would be a star rising in the West, which no natural star does.

So you can imagine that, you can imagine these wise men, these astronomers of the ancient world, seeing this new star appear in the West, rising in the West, and thinking, wow, that's weird, a star, nothing, we've never seen anything like that.

And then one of them says, wait a minute, I think it's over Israel. And I think I remember reading somewhere about a star rising over Israel. And they go back and look at Numbers 2417. I mean, this is speculation, we don't know what they knew, but they were the scholars of the ancient world.

And so it seems very likely they would have had access to Numbers, I mean, it's part of the Torah. So that would have been, they almost certainly would have had access to that. And if just one of them remembered that there's this verse about a star rising over Israel, and now we're seeing it, they would recognize that's the star that represents this king who's going to be born king of the Jews.

So that may be how they were able to know that. And again, from the distance of Persia, this would explain why they went to Jerusalem and not Bethlehem, because those two would be indistinguishable, the distance between them is so small that from Persia, they couldn't tell, they would just know it's in Israel.

And so it made sense for them to go to the capital city, if the star had disappeared by the time they arrived in Jerusalem, either because it is faded or because of weather. But in any case, it, by the way, it doesn't have to be a particularly bright star.

The fact that it rose in the West would get the attention of astronomers, and by the way, would not get the attention of most other people. If you don't, if you're not really familiar with the night sky, you might not notice a new star in the West, but the Magi did.

And they would have noted its peculiar behavior as rising in the West when natural stars do not do that. On to verse three, when Herod the king heard it, he was troubled in all Jerusalem with him. Well, it's not surprising that Herod is troubled.

This caravan of Magi, who have the power to depose kings and have their own personal army with them, are in town looking for the king of Jews, who they think is not Herod. You can imagine he's troubled, he thinks he's going to lose his throne.

What's, again, an indictment and ironic is that Jerusalem was troubled with him, because you see, this is the capital city of the Jews. They should have been ecstatic. First of all, they should have read the prophecy in Daniel and recognized, hey, this is the time, this is about the time that the Messiah should come.

And they would have had access to numbers 24, 17. They might have looked for a star rising over Israel. They weren't looking for it. And instead of being excited about him born king of the Jews, they're bothered because they know this is going to enrage Herod.

And Herod's a wicked king, who knows what he's going to do at this news. So they're troubled with him. So instead of being excited, they have the same reaction as a very ungodly, a very wicked man. So what does Herod do?

Well, he gathers together all the chief priests and scribes of the people. Now that he knows that there's this king of the Jews allegedly being born, he wants to know all the details he can. He asked him, where is Christ to be born?

And of course, they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it was written by the prophet. And they now quote Micah chapter five, verse two, and you Bethlehem land of Judah are by no means least among the leaders of Judah for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Now they are quoting Micah chapter five, verse two. And if you look at Micah five, two, the wording is a little different. And you might think, were they paraphrasing? No, they're quoting from the Septuagint.

The Septuagint, of course, was the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures. And generally, in the New Testament, when people quote scriptures, they quote from the Septuagint, because most of the Jews actually couldn't read Hebrew at that point, interestingly, but Greek was the international language of the day.

And so if you were educated, you could at least read Greek. And so that was the the Septuagint was the the Bible of the early church, not the Masoretic text, not the original, because most people couldn't read it.