Magi were not necessarily astronomers or astrologers

by Damien F. Mackey “Magi from the East came to Jerusalem”. Matthew 2:1 Here it will be claimed inter alia that: - The Magi were not eastern Gentiles, but were Israelites living in the East; - The Magi would have been well aware of Micah’s prophecy about Bethlehem as the Messiah’s place of birth; - The Star was not a regular heavenly body of any sort; - The Magi saw the Star, but did not initially follow it; - They left their home quite some time later; - The Star did not lead them to Jerusalem; - The Magi eventually followed the Star from Jerusalem to Bethlehem; - They did not come to the Stable, but to the House. Introduction Amongst the many conflicting traditions regarding the Magi of Matthew 2 is one according to which the Magi were descendants of the prophet Job. This has appealed to me, given my view that some significant supposed Gentiles in the Bible were actually Hebrews (Israelites/Jews): Bible critics can overstate idea of ‘enlightened pagan’ (4) Bible critics can overstate idea of 'enlightened pagan' | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu In what follows it will become clear why I strongly favour this, albeit poorly known, tradition. But, for this to be facilitated, it is necessary for the prophet Job to be fully identified. Firstly, Job was Tobias son of Tobit of the (Catholic) Book of Tobit. This connection imposed itself forcefully upon my mind on this very same day (1st January, Solemnity of the Mother of God) some decades ago. Secondly Tobias (Job), who lived in neo-Assyrian captivity - and on into the Chaldean and Medo-Persian eras - and who must therefore also have had a foreign name, was the prophet Habakkuk (an Akkadian name). Thirdly, the Jews must have shortened the unfamiliar name Habakkuk to Hakkai (or Haggai). {A note on the Prophet Mohammed: The names of Mohammed’s parents, Abdullah and Amna, are virtually identical to the names of Tobias/Job’s parents, Tobit and Anna – the name Tobit being a Greek version of Obad-iah, in which the Greek substitutes τ for the silent ayin (עֹבַדְיָה) at the beginning of the name. Obadiah would be, in Arabic, Abdullah. Also the dreadful anachronisms of Mohammed having involvement with Nineveh, plus his claim that the prophet Jonah was his brother, may be accounted for by the fact that Tobit, Anna and Tobias had lived in Nineveh, and that they knew of Jonah/Nahum (cf. Tobit 14:4 USC)} A Reconstruction of the Magi Incident The pious Tobit, now dying, had expressed this wish (Tobit 13:16): ‘Happy too will I be if a remnant of my offspring survives to see your glory and to give thanks to the King of heaven!’ And here we have the key to the whole thing! The Glory of the Lord (כְּבוֹד יְהוָה) that the prophet Ezekiel had seen depart the Temple, prior to the Babylonian destruction of it (Ezekiel 10:18), apparently had not returned when the second Temple was finished under the inspiration of our man, Haggai, and Zechariah. This Glory was what is popularly called the Shekinah (not a biblical term). But the prophet Haggai, the son of Tobit (see Introduction), knew that the Glory would ultimately return (Haggai 2:6-9): This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this House with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty. ‘The glory of this present House [Temple] will be greater than the glory of the former House,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty. He who had once proclaimed: ‘For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth’ (Job 19:25), must have held an unshakeable hope that his father Tobit’s great longing for his descendants to see that Glory return would indeed be fulfilled. And see it these descendants of the Tobiads did, as the Magi of Matthew 2. The so-called Star of Matthew was actually the Glory of the Lord, not Venus, nor a constellation, nor a comet. The Magi knew from family prophecy that the Glory was returning, and that it would announce the arrival of the Messiah born in Bethlehem (cf. Micah 5:2). And that is why they recognised the phenomenon as His Star (Matthew 2:2). They were “from the East” (2:1) just like Job was (Job 1:3): “… this man was the greatest of all the men of the East”. The Magi did not initially follow the Star. Presumably they delayed to give the Messianic Child, the King of the Jews, time to be able to stand upright. Then they went directly to Jerusalem (they did not need the Star for that), perhaps fully expecting the Child now to be enthroned there. It was only after they left King Herod, that the Magi saw the Glory phenomenon again. This was the one and only time that they actually followed the Star, as it led them to the House where the Boy-King was now dwelling with Mary and Joseph. Strongly recommended as a supplement to this article is this one: The Magi and the Star that Stopped (4) The Magi and the Star that Stopped | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu