Dr. Ernest L. Martin wrote a book called, The Star of Bethlehem: The Star that Astonished the World, and I became aware of this book as I was working on the Yeshua birth matrixes. His scholarship has withstood peer review and at least one aspect of the book is now in the latest edition of The Handbook of Biblical Chronology. We'll cover that shortly, but first his website is http://www.askelm.com and you can order his book directly by calling 1-503-292-4352. His e-mail address is: askoffice@askelm.com

Dr. Ernest L. Martin shows in his book, that the signs in the sky shown in Revelation 12:1-3, occurred on only one day in 3 BC, and they occurred exactly on September 11, 3 BC between 6:15 pm and 7:49 pm. What are these celestial signs?

Revelation 12:1-3 And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars; and she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven; and behold, a great red dragon having seven heds and 10 horns, and on his heads were seven diadems.

Because the earth is rotating, there is apparent motion of the sun and moon, while the stars stay somewhat fixed in relation to the earth. The sun was mid-body along the ecliptic in Virgo the Virgin on September 11, 3 BC, and the moon was under her feet exactly from 6:15 to 7:49 pm on September 11, 3 BC. According to Dr. Martin, this great sign in the sky only occured on that one day in 3 BC.

While Dr. Martin's date for the birth of Yeshua (Jesus) agrees exactly with what is in the Bible code, can we infer that the birth of Yeshua took place exactly between 6:15 to 7:49 pm on September 11, 3 BC? I believe that we can accept the time of birth as being 7 pm plus or minus an hour based on the exact sign in the sky.

What about the death of Herod as it relates to all this? After all, many scholars have said that king Herod died in 4 BC or 5 BC? Dr. Ernest L. Martin in his book, laboriously goes through each possibility for the death of king Herod and with a number of other scholars, proves that Herod died a couple of weeks after the total lunar eclipse of January 10, 1 BC. He pinpoints the date of death of Herod to about January 29, 1 BC plus or minus a couple of days.

Flavius Josephus wrote many details surrounding the death and burial of king Herod in his Jewish Antiquities. He writes that king Herod died shortly after a lunar eclipse. The lunar eclipses for that period of time in Israel were:

7 BC -- no lunar eclipse
6 BC -- no lunar eclipse
5 BC -- total lunar eclipse on March 23, time between eclipse and Passover was 29 days
5 BC -- total lunar eclipse on September 15, time between eclipse and Passover was 7 months
4 BC -- partial lunar eclipse on March 13, time between eclipse and Passover was 29 days
3 BC -- no lunar eclipse
2 BC -- no lunar eclipse
1 BC -- total lunar eclipse on January 10, time between eclipse and Passover was 12.5 weeks.

Dr. Martin and a number of other scholars have shown that given the details by Josephus and other historians of that time, that king Herod had to have died almost 3 weeks after the lunar eclipse. Then there were preparations for a royal burial and a 30-day period for the procession and burial. After that was over, the new king, Archelaus took care of many royal duties before Passover. Given all this, the two springtime lunar eclipses in 5 and 4 BC could not possibly be the lunar eclipse preceding king Herod's death. You'll have to read Dr. Martin's book to get all the details and other supporting information.

The point is that scholarship by Dr. Martin and others proves that what the Bible code shows in relation to the birth of Yeshua (Jesus) is both reasonable and expected.

Click here for a short Flash movie that was developed by a cooperative venture of MSNBC and Griffith Planetarium, based on Dr. Martin's research/findings, to show what the Star of Bethlehem actually looked like in the skies in 3BC and 2 BC. You'll need either the Flash player from Macromedia which you can download here for Flash Player 6 for all types of computers and browsers, or you can play the Flash movie in RealPlayer. This is really worth seeing visually!!

What does this all mean? It means that Christmas is entirely pagan and is the continuation of the religious practices of ancient Babylon. Yeshua (Jesus) was born on September 11, 3 BC and was earlier conceived on December 13, 4 BC. There is nothing about Yeshua related to Christmas except man-made customs. Saturnalia was the celebration of the winter solstice from ancient Babylon and Semiramis gave birth to Tammuz on December 25. The Roman and Greek world worshipped the sun in a religion called Mithraism, and December 25 was the Nativity of the Sun (Sol the sun god). Tammuz was supposedly the rebirth of Nimrod who is also known as Baal. The yule log is from ancient Babylon symbolizing the stump for Nimrod or Baal. The green tree decorated with silver and gold and nailed down so that it would not totter was celebrated by ancient Israel as they apostasized (Jeremiah 10:3-4), and there are a number of references in the Old Testament to a green tree as an idol. It is the same Christmas tree customs which people use today for Christmas. The round sparkly balls represent the sun. The popes in about 350 AD deliberately renamed the birth of Sol the sun-god on December 25 as a christian custom. That is recorded in the Roman writings of that time. All of these Christmas customs were done by the pagans before the day was renamed as a Christian holiday. Isn't it interesting that there were ancient presentations of the woman and child thousands of years before Yeshua was born? These madonna and child representations were Semiramis and Tammuz from ancient Babylon.

A good book is Babylon Mystery Religion, by Ralph Woodrow, available at many christian bookstores.

So many christians wonder when reading the Revelation, what Mystery Babylon could be in our modern time. It is partly the modern church, which has a mixture of the true teachings from the Bible, plus the most sacred christian days being the old pagan Baal customs. All of these old pagan customs are part of the celebration of the rebirth of the sun on December 25. None of this is from God our Father. The Puritans in America forbade the celebration of Christmas because they knew and taught what has been presented here, that Christmas has nothing to do with Christ or the conception or birth of Yeshua. Actually the end-times Mystery Babylon is a religious Babylon, an economic Babylon, and a political Babylon. The religious Babylon is only part of Mystery Babylon.

I know, the first excuse usually given is, well we can do good on that day. Yes, you can do good on any day of the year. Why is it that you have to give gifts and put up a green tree in your house on December 25? Is it because everyone else does it? Secondly, pastors will say that they preach the gospel on that day and some get saved. Yes, that does occur, but isn't it the preaching of the Word of God and not the trappings of the pagan holiday that saves people. That too can occur any day of the year.

The fact is that believers need to repent that they perpetuated these pagan days and called them meaningful. You can make fun of ancient Israel when they adopted the customs of the pagans and were later expelled from the land for their faithlessness, but aren't we doing the same things? Please reconsider celebrating pagan holidays and calling them christian.

Barbara Di Gilio recently put an article on her Mayim Hayim website, adding to the debate concerning the conception and birth of Yeshua (Jesus). While her work doesn't specify the exact dates as shown in this article for the birth, however it is a good background article. For Unto Us a Child is Born: The Debate of Timing.