Customer Reviews

The Star of the Magi: The Mystery That Heralded the Coming of Christ

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It has been my habit, over this past decade, to annually pick up a copy of a Bethlehem Star study and read it amid the Christmas season. Through the years I've read Molnar, Kidger, Moore, Gilbert, and others. (See my Amazon reviews for these Bethlehem Star and Magi authors.) This discipline has proved rewarding in a number of ways and I now commend the practice to you.

For this year's star study I purchased Courtney Robert's "The Star of the Magi" (2007 223-page paperback) from Amazon. It is an interesting read, comfortably documented (with 7 pages of endnotes and a 14-page bibliography), that has proven to be informative and entertaining. Although Roberts' will probably never be a classic her efforts he should certainly ignite interest in the Persian origins theory for the Magi that traveled to Christ's crib-side.

Roberts begins with the premise that most, if not all, contemporary Bethlehem Star studiers tend to exclude the dramatic Persian stellar cosmology. Citing, for example, Michael Molnar's formidable presentation about "The Star of Bethlehem" (1999) Roberts says that his conclusions are based on ancient Greek and Roman sources and are, therefore, lacking and inconclusive. She points to additional information about the Magi from Persian sources and invites reader to consider the Magi at Christ's nativity in a new way.

Unfortunately, Roberts proffers no original explanation for the Bethlehem Star or its Magi journey initiation. In fact, she put little belief in Matthew's entire nativity account. Her unimaginative and complacent presentation here, therefore, earns her fewer rating stars.

Robert's historical study is comprehensive and thorough. She presents ancient textual criticisms and adapts them to modern thinking about very old events and people. Often through the reading of this book I retrieved my Bible, Molnar, Kidger, Astruc, and ancient histories for a more complete look. In many ways Roberts challenges conventional thinking and contemporary wisdom about the Bethlehem narrative's Magi.

The downside of this book is that Roberts is a self confessed revisionist (she invites readers to be "patient with my attempts to rewrite history in my own image..." page 16). Much of her work seems a "rewrite" and even perhaps a play for notoriety. This does not destract from the book, but serious historians should be warned.

This book is recommended to all Bethlehem Star studiers, those curious about the Magi, and Biblical stellar enthusiasts.

Happy New Year!

THE STAR OF THE MAGI approaches the star in St. Matthew's Nativity story from two historical perspectives. In the first half of this book, Roberts identifies the Magi correctly as Zoroastrian priests and reviews their enormous influence on Western thinking via the Jews and Greeks. The second half of the book offers a history of astrology and its impact on Middle Eastern and Western thinking through the ages. Throughout the book, she carefully documents her claims with ancient and modern sources.

Among the examples Roberts gives to illustrate the ties between the Magian religion and the West is the tradition in the early Christian church (and retained in the Nestorian Church of the East) that Zoroaster foretold the coming of Christ. Also, after the Jews are freed from captivity in Babylon, their tribal god is transformed into the God of the Universe, similar to the Magi's Universal God Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord), and the intermittent polytheism often mentioned in the Hebrew Bible is abandoned. Most notably, Roberts lists these familiar-sounding concepts which originated with the religion of the Magi: 1) God and the Devil, 2) Heaven and Hell, 3) The Last Judgment, 4) The resurrection of the dead, 5) Angels and Demons, 6) The Holy Spirit, 7) The virgin birth of the Savior, 8) The ultimate battle of good and evil at the end of the world. Jewish affinity for the Persians continued during the Parthian Persian Empire which ruled virtually all the Middle East at the time of Jesus (the Romans ruled only a narrow strip of the Middle East around the Mediterranean).

Roberts puts the Persian Empire of Cyrus and Darius at the "axle" of the Axial Age but notes that Zoroaster's revelation is much older. She acknowledges the problems with dating other Zoroastrian writings but points out that recent biblical scholarship has found the same to be true about the Hebrew Scriptures.

In reviewing theories about the Star of Bethlehem, Roberts gives an interesting history of astrology beginning with the early church fathers and continuing forward to include the 8th Century Baghdad astrologer Masha'Allah and Renaissance astronomer/astrology Johannes Kepler. She rightfully reminds us that astrology was considered a science at the time of Jesus and that modern astronomers have only recently begun to analyze the Nativity star's appearance in the context of First Century astrology/astronomy. So what is the author's conclusion about the Star of Bethlehem? Roberts says that she's, "not entirely sure." Nevertheless, her book is a fascinating account of the REAL history of the Magi and the REAL history of ancient astrology.

Ken R. Vincent, Ed.D. is the author of THE MAGI: FROM ZOROASTER TO THE "THREE WISE MEN." (This review was originally published in the UNIVERSALIST HERALD, Vol. 158, No. 6, November/December 2007)

While this book was a bit heavy in spots, it contained a wealth of interesting historical information regarding what really was going on in the Middle East prior to and during the time when Christ was born. It explores the astrological expertise of the religious leaders at the time and also points out the irony that the Persians recognized the signs of a royal birth while the Jews missed it entirely. If Abraham taught astrology to the Chaldeans as noted in this volume, that should truly give a lot of religious zealots who bad-mouth astrology something to think about.

I HAVE NOT RECEIVED THIS BOOK YET. i ORDERED IT ON Dec. 29th and the person who was suppose to receive it should have by Jan.21st The order #was 105-0782004-315382- (Pinecone Bookshoppe)