we have seen his star in the east
In my KJV, east is capitalized, meaning that the Magi were consulting their astrological charts - back East.
A skeptic once asked me to explain how the Magi, while traveling west, could be following a star in the east, or behind them.
East, in the KJV translation means from the direction of the rising sun.
My mistake. It is the RSV...
scrabbleback: Is it known that the Magi came from Persia? (Post #5)
Paisan: In my KJV, east is capitalized, , , , (Post #7)
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I think not, in all of these comments.
Daniel and his three friends were of the royal line, deported to Babylon in what is now Iraq. They were emasculated, made eunuchs, and because of their lineage were employed as administrators of the prevailing ruler. They themselves rgerefore had no descendants, and thus could not be a threat to any other royalty lineage. There was no indication that Daniel ever left the region of Babylon, but remained there and served as a chief administrator of the kings ruling from that site.
Because the Temple was destroyed, the education of Jewish boys in religion and government was no longer conducted in Jerusalem. In its place, wherever the dispersed Jews congregated, synagogues and their yeshivas were established for that purpose, and came under the conduct of the Levitical Boblical teachers, all throughout the lands, and have continued to this day as the method.
Daniel, being a devout Jew, would have nothing to do with cooperating with the phony magicians, soothsayers, and "wise men." PBR's attribution to the Magoi of being influenced by Daniel is not only an assumption, but a bad one at that. In fact, the Bible says nothing about the Magoi coming from Persia, or even from the direction east of Jerusalem/Bethlehem. Neither the Bible nor history annals say nowhere that they even existed.
As far as "east" in Matthew 2:1 and 2 is concerned, in no KJV that I have ever read or owned is the word capitalized. If one has a Bible in which it is capitalized, then it is not a KJV at all (maybe a NKJV or "New Scofield Edition"?). All copies of the KJV are consistent and uniform, right down to the punctuation and italicization (except for a couple of known matters not relevant here).
But actually, "east" in these verses ought to be capitalized, for the words in the Greek refer to a place name, not a direction as one would gather from the (wrongly) ambiguously interpreted English.
Here is the difference: in the Greek, the word is ἀνατολή (pronounced an-at-ol-ay'), which in the geopolitical sense is the place name "Anatolia", which refers to the eastern plains of the isthmus of Middle Asian Turkey. That region dates from the time that Greece and Persia fought over that territory, It was called "East" by the Greeks of that day because it was to the east of their homeland, just as a Yankee would call Dixieland "the South." (But today, a Los Angeles native would say that Mobile is in the South, even though Alabama is directly to the east by compass from California.)
What I am saying here is that when the Magoi told Herod, "We in Anatolia have seen His Star," everyone would have known that they came from the lands far to the north of Jerusalem, from the very same direction from which Abraham came down to Canaan, two thousand years before. They did not come from Babylon, or Persia, or India, or China.
OK, if y'all have got this, let me know. Then I will go on and tell you who I presume who the Magoi were descendants of, exactly where they came from, and what star they were referring to.