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Hello Dieter, you wrote:
"At first, the idea that the magi could have used the Star of Bethlehem for 
navigation did not make any sense to me."

I agree. It wasn't any form of celestial navigation, even in the most 
primitive sense. Only an object at low altitude, like a meteor, could 
uniquely mark a location like a specific town, but no low-altitude phenomena 
last long enough to fit the description of the Star of B.

And you wrote:
"what _was_ "navigation" in ancient times?"

Even in recent times (as recently as 150 years ago), navigation has had two 
meanings. There's the modern meaning of finding and projecting one's position 
in order to reach a specific destination, and then there's a broader meaning 
that today would be closer to piloting or even just sailing. So in a 19th 
century text, if you see a phrase like "our navigational skills were tested 
on the voyage across the Atlantic," it's possible that it's referring to 
position-finding (the modern meaning of navigation and the one we're talking 
about on NavList) but's more likely that "navigational skills" means 
"seamanship" --the general set of skills that keeps you alive and safe on the 
voyage.

As for the magi, counting something like "they told us to go to Bethlehem" or 
"prophecy suggests Bethlehem" as navigation would stretch the modern meaning 
of navigation to the breaking point.

And:
"When they departed from Bethlehem, they did not return to Herod 
but were instructed in a dream to take a different road. Is this a kind of 
navigation?"

Probably not for this group! :-) As long as there is some connection to 
celestial navigation and/or issues in positional astronomy, this thread is a 
reasonable extension of topics we've discussed here before. But navigating by 
dreams? Whoa there. Let's not.

-FER



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