A retired engineer turns to astronomy software on the Christmas story, asking what the shepherds, the wise men, and even the stars may have witnessed.
AVON, OH, UNITED STATES, November 10, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — “Visit of the Wise Men,” a new study by Hollis Frances, reads the Christmas story against the stars that were actually overhead. To write it, Frances opened astronomy software and wound the sky back about two thousand years, to the night Jesus was born.
The book is part Bible history, part archaeology, and part astronomy. Frances sets the Wise Men account in its world: the prophecies, the daily life of first-century Jews, and the sky above it. For the timing, he leans on filmmaker Rick Larson, whose documentary “The Star of Bethlehem” places the birth of Jesus in June and points to a close meeting of Jupiter and Venus as the star itself. Then, Frances goes a step further than most, bringing in vantage points stargazers rarely use: the dwarf planets Makemake and Ceres along with Earth, as extra “witnesses” to check against what the software showed.
The project began in prayer. Frances says that after a lifetime of reciting the Lord’s Prayer and the Shema, the familiar words struck him differently, and he wanted to understand the world they came from. That curiosity about everyday life in Jesus’s time runs through the whole book. As Frances puts it, “It’s a wide-angle historical view of the Wise Men’s Biblical account. I want folks to see a more personalized perspective of daily community life in the time of Jesus.”
That ground-level view changes familiar faces. Mary and Joseph, the young couple at the center of the Nativity, look different once you understand how Jewish engagement and marriage actually worked. The shepherds keeping watch near Bethlehem turn out to be tending sheep raised for Temple sacrifice, which means the Lamb of God was born in the very town that bred the sacrificial lambs. And the Magi, the wise men who came from the East, may have been students or descendants of the exiled prophet Daniel, still watching the skies generations later.
One idea ties it together: witness. The shepherds witnessed the angels. The stars, Frances argues, witnessed the same moment from above. It’s the same idea behind the name of his quarterly journal, “An Alter Called Witness.”
Frances is also careful to say what this book is not: “I chose not to interpret the ‘zodiac.’ Instead, I detail the zodiac locations of the Sun, Moon, and planets as viewed from different dates, times, and locations. These are factual, based upon astronomy software. Not my own interpretations of them.”
The issue doesn’t dodge hard questions, either. It closes with an essay by writer Richard Davis arguing that Christmas and Easter carry pagan roots and that Christians might rethink how they keep them, a view Frances says he’s come to understand. Frances says, “Unfortunately, the celebration has shifted from God’s gift of Jesus to Santa Claus as a cultural figure.”
EARLY PRAISE
Offering fresh perspectives on faith and ideas that invite readers to think a little deeper, the book has earned praise from Reader Views:
“Prepare yourself for profound concepts you never saw coming.” — Terri Stepek, Reader Views
“A worthwhile, thought-provoking, and contemplative read.” — Rachel Dehning, Reader Views
“Visit of the Wise Men” is for readers who like their faith paired with evidence, and for anyone who’s wondered what the Christmas story looked like from the ground, or from the sky. A Christmas special edition of “An Alter Called Witness,” it includes a daily Bible reading plan.
BOOK DETAILS
Title: “Visit of the Wise Men”
Author: Hollis Frances along with an excerpt by Avram Yehoshua
Series: An Alter Called Witness (quarterly journal), Christmas special edition
Genre: Christian nonfiction, biblical history, and astronomy
Publisher: Independently Published (2025)
Format: eBook
Price: $2.99
ASIN: B0FVMP539R
Where to buy: “Visit of the Wise Men” is available on Amazon.Com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hollis Frances has fifteen years’ experience in technical writing from his career as a Technical Support Engineer on medical equipment at a major manufacturer and service company. He retired after thirty years in 2020. That’s when he decided to start a new career as an author of short stories based on actual events, though he does have a novel or two inside his heart that need to come out in the future. He published his first short story, “Willy’s Accident,” in 2021. He is a military veteran who served first in the US Navy for four years, from 1975 to 1979, then enlisted in the US Marines in 1983 and served until 1987. He has a degree in Electronic Communications Technology. He is married with two adult children and three grandchildren. He now writes and publishes the quarterly journal “An Alter Called Witness,” whose Christmas special edition is “Visit of the Wise Men.”
Learn more about the author and his work at: https://www.writing.com/main/portfolio.php/view/hollisfrances
Listen to an interview with the author: https://www.insidescooplive.com/e/visit-of-the-wise-men-frances/
MEDIA CONTACT
Hollis Frances
Author
Hollisfrances@writing.com
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