Meet the Magi: Eric Vanden Eykel

In his recent book, The Magi: Who They Were, How They've Been Remembered, and Why They Still Fascinate, historian and scholar Eric Vanden Eykel helps readers better understand both the Magi and the ancient and modern interpreters who have tried to study them. He shows how, from a mere twelve verses in the Gospel of Matthew, a varied and vast literary and artistic tradition was born.

The Magi examines the birth of the Magi story; its enrichments, embellishments, and expansions in apocryphal writing and early Christian preaching; its artistic expressions in catacombs, icons, and paintings and its modern legacy in novels, poetry, and music.

Eric M. Vanden Eykel is associate professor of religion and the Forrest S. Williams Teaching Chair in the Humanities at Ferrum College. He is the author of But Their Faces Were Looking Up: Author and Reader in the Protoevangelium of James (2016) and is a general editor of the Journal for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies. He lives in Roanoke, Virginia.