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Article Title:	Star Of Wonder, Star Of Light
Author of reported comment:	Mark Dingemans
Comment Date:	20:05 on Dec 26 2007
Comment:	I really appreciate Mr. Taylor's article, in that it dispels the add-ons we have done over the centuries to the Christmas story. If I might make some comments ... If you read Matthew's account (ch.2) exactly as it reads, the magi did not follow the star from the east. .. Mat. 2:2 "For we SAW His star in the east..." They understood something of this star that they had seen, but maybe, because of the shift in the constellations through the seasons, considering also they were most likely from the region of present day western Iran (or possibly far eastern Iraq), being from the region of ancient Susa (of Daniel's time), they could not have followed the star. It is evident from Mat. 2:10, in their excitement - having first come to Jerusalem, because it was the city of the great Israeli kings of old - that they alas see the star again, as though it was appearing after a season of absence, only to confirm the scripture verse from Micah. King David, in Psalm 19:1 indeed declared that the heavens were declaring the glory of the Lord. God in heaven made sure that their foundation was not in the sky above, but in His written word. When they came to the truth of His word, the heavens simply confirmed it. It was dangerous for these men even to be in the Roman empire, though Herod had forgotten recent history. His father had been booted off the throne by the Parthians barely four decades earlier: The Parthian kingdom was the kingdom due east of the Roman empire, the kingdom out of which the magi stepped - and Rome had tried and would try for decades beyond this time to conquer it. It was Rome who had helped Herod's father, (and later Herod himself) to get back and keep the throne. But the magi came, and then returned another way, taking back to their leaders, and maybe to the Jews who had never left (from Babylonian captivity) the story of the star, the prophetic word of Micah, and the new King of the Jews ... yes, of the Universe.

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