BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Gloria Kendall is adamant she saw the Star of Bethlehem. It was, in fact, the moon.
In a rare astronomical event overnight, the paths of the earth and moon combined to make a full moon seem larger and brighter than usual."It appeared in the east with a shimmering halo around it, close to Christmas Eve, and I intend to tell my grandchildren about it someday," said Kendall, 28, from New York.
Astronomers agreed Thursday it was a stunning display and it clearly thrilled pilgrims in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
But it was not the biblical Star of the East that has gripped imaginations and has remained a mystery for 2000 years.
Tsvi Piran of Jerusalem's Hebrew University said a comet was the most likely explanation for the guiding star in the New Testament story. The Star of Bethlehem was said to have lead the Three Wise Men to the manger of the new-born Jesus in Bethlehem.
"If we consider all the accounts, for example, of where the (Wise Men) walked, the Star of Bethlehem had to have been in the sky for a number of months and changed position over time.
"But there is no one phenomenon in astronomy that corresponds exactly to all accounts, that is, if we accept that Jesus was born in the year zero," he said.
Piran said a virtual consensus of researchers now placed the actual year of the birth as two or more years earlier.
"The data show that there was a comet that took a path that may have been appropriate, but it shone a number of years BC (Before Christ)," he said.
"There were also at least two conjunctions of planets that could possibly fit, at 4 and 6 BC."
Last February, a convergence of Venus and Jupiter set off wide speculation and the pealing of church bells after dark in Bethlehem. Astronomers said the two planets were also in convergence about 2,000 years ago.
Another theory champions a supernova, or exploding star as Bethlehem's sparkler. "The problem is that a supernova is always found in the same place in the sky. It does not change position."
Yet another theory was advanced in 1995 by U.S. astronomer Michael Molnar, who said the guiding star was actually a double eclipse of Jupiter, which occurred on March 20, 6 BC.
In Bethlehem's Manger Square, however, where workmen were putting the final touches to preparations for Christmas Eve celebrations, New York tourist Kendall pronounced herself unfazed by the astronomers' theories.
"I know what I saw. And I know what I'm telling my grandchildren," she said.