here is the link to the podcasts for nakedscientist.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/Sho...aming_media.htm

In the most recent cast, there is a discussion on another proposal for the date of the birth of jesus. Take a listen. The topic in question is the last in the cast so ff to approx the last 10 minutes.

The link doesn't work.

Evidentially Mr. Humphries has some inside information that no one else is privy to, including the total Christian population of the world. He is working on the assumption that Luke (who admits that he was not a witness to anything that he reported) has the date of Jesus birth nailed because of a comet. He totally ignores that if this comet of 5 BCE were the alleged “Star of Bethlehem”, Jesus would have started his ministry in 26 CE or two years prior to John the Baptist (Luke reports this to be the 15th year of Tiberius reign or approximately 29 CE and Josephus agrees with this date) starting his. This also means that Jesus would have been executed at around the time that John started his ministry. Suddenly we have a baptism that could not have happened and Jesus dying over half a decade before John. This date of 5 BCE also ignores the recorded fact that Cyrenius (P. Sulpicius Quirinius) was conducting a very successful military campaign in the area of Pamphylia-Galatia (modern Anatolia Turkey) at that time, which would totally negate Luke’s claim that Cyrenius was Governor of Syria at the time of Jesus’ birth. I know of no Roman census conducted in 5 BCE, in fact in his account of the major events of his life, Augustus wrote that he conducted official censuses in 28 BCE, 8 BCE, 6 CE and 14 CE. Dio Cassius the Roman historian wrote that in 6 CE Caesar Augustus set up a fund to benefit the Roman military and had kings and certain communities contribute to it. He also made a sizable contribution and promised to do so each year. When this did not provide sufficient funds to keep the military going, he issued a worldwide decree that there would be a 5% inheritance tax on estates/inheritances, something beyond normal taxation. Such taxation would require a census to register transferable assets, such as land, and to record genealogies to establish “very near relatives” (Roman History LV 25:5-6). The 6 CE census was the only one of Augustus’ censuses that was deemed universal or “all the world”. In short Mr. Humphries seems to be a bit of a fraud, with very little knowledge of the history of that period – Da Wolf

Has anyone even considered that John and Jesus never met, and it was all contrived later? A similiar situation exists elsewhere. The writings of Chuang Tzu include a meeting of Confucius and Lao Tzu. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of philosophical literature ever written. Did it really happen? Probably not! Did Jesus really exist? Probably not! We have just a little of nonscriptural evidence about John the Baptist, so it makes sense that the Church Councils would have written him into the n.t.

I always figured Jesus was a Leo. To be born a messiah under any other sign would be weird.