Eileen Maddocks grew up in Maine and graduated from the University of Kansas with a liberal
arts degree. She was a seeker half her life until she discovered and embraced the Bahá’í Faith.
When first introduced to the Bahá’í Faith, she was seized by the fact that God has always been
active in human history, that He had sent many Prophets of God to educate humanity. Having
majored in history during her university studies, Eileen was astonished to realize that the single
most important factor in human history, God and His Prophets, was not recognized by
professional historians. She served at the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa, Israel, for sixteen years
in positions that required extensive research and writing.
Eileen is now an independent researcher and writer who describes herself as a curious student.
She took to heart ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s admonition that we must know the Old and New Testaments as
the Word of God. Her first book, 1844: Convergence in Prophecy for Judaism, Christianity,
Islam and the Bahá’í Faith, was published in 2018. Her current project is finishing the trilogy
The Coming of the Glory: How the Hebrew Scriptures Reveal the Plan of God that presents a
Bahá’í perspective of the Hebrew Bible and its prophecies and importance for us today. This
study presents in a chronological, systematic manner the ministries and prophecies of the
Hebrew prophets within the context of Israelite history. The last and third volume will be
published soon.
The topic for Eileen’s presentation today is “Angels, Stars and Forerunners: A Bahá’í
Perspective on Christmas.” Have you ever wondered if there really was a star foretelling Jesus’s
birth? If the Magi really did visit the infant Jesus? Or are the Gospel birth stories part of a larger
fabric?
