Debate on Jesus’ Star: In the East? Historical?

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.”

--Matthew 2:1-2 The newly photographed Syriac Sinaiticus 30 is apparently the only manuscript of the Gospels that says the wise men, or Magi, saw Jesus’ star “from the east,” according to New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth. Whether that is the “correct” or original version, however, can only be debated, he said.

The Revised Standard Version of the Bible, cited above, translates Matthew 2:2 literally from the Greek, that the Magi saw “his star in the East.” The sentence is ambiguous in both Greek and English: It can mean that the wise men saw the star in the eastern sky or that they saw it while they were in the East.

Somewhere in the processes of translation and copying, a scribe may have wanted to eliminate the mistaken impression that the Magi were drawn toward a star in the East and therefore headed toward China instead of west, Charlesworth said.

The other possibility is that the Syriac text retains the oldest version, he said.

Some biblical interpreters have favored a reading of Matthew 2:2 like the one found in the New Jerusalem Bible: “ . . . we saw his star as it rose. . . .” Raymond Brown, in The Birth of the Messiah, said the Magi, having seen the star rise, went to Jerusalem for information. “Only in Verse 9 was it said to guide them to Jerusalem,” Brown said.

Charlesworth said he, like many other scholars who employ historical-literary methods in biblical studies, does not think that the author of Matthew was describing an actual historical event in the skies. “That is the most popular interpretation,” he said. Speculations surface annually in December about super-nova appearing in the heavens in that period; this year, the name of Halley’s Comet has been invoked.

“Matthew was more concerned to stress the messianic quality of Jesus,” Charlesworth said. “As we know from Numbers (24:17-19), the rising of a star meant the coming of God’s promised one who would restore peace and harmony throughout the world. For Matthew, Jesus was clearly the Messiah, the star promised in the Scriptures. It is not ‘the star’ that is seen, but ‘his star’ that is seen.”