Excerpt from Birth of the Messiah by Paul Thomas Smith.
(reading only)
That night, a brilliant new star shone in the heavens. Halfway around the world, Nephi, son of Nephi, the son of Helaman, wrote, "And it came to pass also that a new star did appear, according to the word" (3 Ne. 1:21). Hundreds of years earlier, the prophet Balaam had said in a dual prophecy, "There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel" (Num. 24:17), foretelling both the star and the birth of the messianic king. The star was symbolic of the light of Christ: "After long ages of darkness, says the Testament of Judah, an early Christian text discovered among the Qumran scrolls in 1952, 'shall a star rise to you from Jacob in peace, and a man shall arise like the sun of righteousness, and the heavens shall be opened to him.'"19
In a distant country east of the Holy Land—perhaps Persia or Babylon—that star was observed by an unknown number of learned men who were familiar with prophecies foretelling its appearance. They were aware that the sign proclaimed the birth of a king who would reign over his people, the Jews. "Then shall the Lord raise up a new priest," states the Testament of Levi, another early Christian text. "His Star shall rise in heaven as of a king and the heavens shall be opened."20
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