No, I Don't Mean In The 'Space 1999: Force Of Life' Sense
You ought to remember that we've covered this previously on the blog, and I remember a quote about the actor Ian McShane ' - being turned into something resembling a baked potato on legs' after he gets a good blamming from one of those handy-dandy laser hand-grips they have. Art!
Pretty ambulatory for a baked potato. Then, of course, he walks into the nuclear reactor and it blows up and a glowing cloud of plasma emerges, which Victor speculates might be the birth of a star. Art!
CAUTION! Sun Protection Factor 1,000,000 needed All that's left of McShane
No, here I am going to be looking at the next of "The Seventy Great Mysteries Of The Ancient World", which will be abbreviated to '70' because I have a limited lifespan, to wit: "The Star Of Bethlehem".
Here we need to quote from the Book Of Matthew, as this is the only source for the Star:
"Now when Jesus was born in Judea in the days of Herod the king .....'We have seen his star in the east" ..... and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them.'
Not a lot to go on. Nor is it certain that there was an actual 'star' in the first place, as there is no mention of it in the annals of Herod or the citizens of Bethlehem. This rather scotches the theory that it was a comet, especially as the appearance of comets was seen as a harbinger of death, not the birth of a messianic king. Art!
That's an artist laying on the poetic licence with a shovel - we will come back to this later. Art!
This, gentle reader, is a Roman bronze coin minted in the year 6 AD, during the reign of Augustus, traded in the provincial capital of Antioch. What does this have to do with the Star of Bethlehem? Look closer and you'll see that Aries, the Ram in astrology, is looking backwards at - a star. The timeframe for the birth of Jesus has been calculated as being between 8 AD and 4 AD, because king Herod jitterbugged off this mortal coil in 4 AD, as further corroboration.
With this coin as a clue, astronomers have worked backwards - you can do this in astronomy with considerable precision - to find an astronomical phenomenon that would have been extremely impressive to the three Magi, being astrologers themselves. On 17th April 6 AD, the 'Star of Zeus', which we now call Jupiter, rose in the constellation Aries, the Ram to astrologers. The Moon would also have been visible in Aries, as well as Saturn. Art!
This trifecta of events may well have been what inspired the Magi to travel to Bethlehem, and is certainly more persuasive than an invisible comet or non-existent nova. Art!
'The Star' has a team of space explorers from Earth discovering the records of a civilisation that was destroyed when it's sun went supernova.
You may see where this is heading so SPOILERS AHOY!
The expedition's astrophysicist works backwards - you can do this in astronomy with considerable precision - to discover that the date this culture's sun went supernova coincides with the S of B on Earth.
Talk about a downbeat ending. It was done as an episode of 'The Twilight Zone' with a slightly less grim ending in 1985, apparently with the blessing of Ol' Art himself, who probably looked back on his youthful and nihilistic self with a bit of regret. Art!
That's the vault the alien civilisation's records were stored in, and a caution to anyone experiencing a supernova that, once again, having Sun Protection Factor sun-cream 1,000,000 is essential to survival.
Okay, I think we've probably offended both sci-fi fans and Christians everywhere, so we'll call this Intro done -
But Not 'Star Of Bethlehem'
That's the thing about digging about in the rabbit warrens of teh Interwebz, you come across odd facts never before encountered, as with this one. Art!
Ornithogalum Umbellatum
Ladies, gentlemen and those unsure, meet the 'Star Of Bethlehem', which is described as a 'Bulbous flowering perrenial', and whose blooms recall the S of B in legend. A member of the asparagus family, IT IS POISONOUS! and needs to be handled with care. A popular choice with gardeners who possess neither children nor pets. As those punk pioneers The Skreeming Voles would say -
Toxic to dogs! Toxic to dogs!
And birds and cats and frogs!
The Skreeming Voles, lest ye be aware, were around when BOOJUM! began, were mentioned briefly back in June this year and three years ago before that. Lest we forget*.
Back To Bedlam
NO! Not the James Blunt album, which <cringes in horror> is 20 years old if you can believe it. Art!
No, we are referring to another use of 'Bethlehem', which was contracted in English usage to 'Bethel', which in turn over several centuries became 'Bedlam'.
Waaaaay back in 1247 the Priory of St. Mary of Bethlehem was founded, although it did not take in lunatics until 1377. It became solely for the provision for lunatics in 1547 and moved to Moorfields in 1675, where it became one of the, quite frankly, most disgusting venues for London sightseers imaginable. They could tour the hospital and torment the inmates for a cash payment. Art!
This state of affairs diminished but was not ended until 1850, when an enlightened doctor, one Charles Hood, took over.
So, the phrase 'Bedlam' means the pre-reform state of affairs in a lunatic asylum, that is, utter chaos.
Battling Bethlehem
I say, we seem to have rather fallen into a Theme today, haven't we? I did plot the Intro and other items whilst having today's Thinking Time with Edna, but this part just kind of evolved.
What am I wittering on about now? O I thought you'd never ask! Art?
This sad industrial carcass is one of the derelict steel mills of 'Bethlehem Steel', one of the biggest steel manufacturers in the world for generations. It began in 1857 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and expanded mightily over successive decades, becoming amongst other things a major shipbuilding organisation. Many of the South Canadian warships of both the First and Second Unpleasantness were built by Bethlehem Steel, so much so that the company was rated one of the most important in the whole of South Canada. Art!
That's one of their plants at Lakawanna in New York State, which ran for 60 years. This photo dates from 1970, when they seem to have treated atmospheric pollution as someone else's problem - everyone downwind.
To get us over the 1,200 Word Count total for today, I did a bit of quick Google-fu and discovered that there is a Bethlehem right here in the Allotment Of Eden. Art!
As you may guess, unless your are one of those furriners who like to peruse our skrivel here, this is a village in Wales. Hence the Welsh. Art!
I am going to nick part of the Wikipedia article about the village, because it well illustrates it's charm.
"Singer Patrick Duff composed a number of the songs, which spurned top forty chart success, while sitting on the stones on top of Carn Goch. He also became great friends with Bethlehem's post master at that time. My dachshund, Angus, was born here on August 15th 2015."
Thank you for that touch of local colour, Wikipediest.
As you may guess, there is an immense seasonal uptick in visitors from mid-December, who like to post Christmas cards so they end up with a 'Bethlehem' postmark.
And with a leap and a bound, we are done!
* They are also a complete figment of Conrad's imagination. Just so we're clear.
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