Ship of Fools: Kerygmania: Not so Wise Men

Thread: Kerygmania: Not so Wise Men Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=001311

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

My sermon this morning was about the Wise Men. It occurred to me when I was preparing, and reading about the slaughter of the innocents that actually it was all the wise men's fault and that their visit to Herod was entirely unnecessary.

What were they thinking?? Telling a King that his rival had been born and "Where is he please?"! (Unless, of course, they assumed it was his heir!) But how could they not have known about Herod and the political situation? Fancy telling a despotic King that there was a new-born pretender to the throne!

Anyway, my thought was this: the scribes looked it up in their commentaries and confirmed that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, and lo, the star went and travelled over to Bethlehem and stood over the house. Did the star wait until the words were read out about Bethlehem Ephratah, and on discovering the venue, went and dutifully shone there? No! It was going there anyway and would have shown the Magi the way had they just waited.

Was the slaughter of the innocents then, the tragic result of the Wise men's failure to follow the God-given sign? And though the murders were entirely on Herod's hands, had the wise men followed the star it all could have been avoided.

What a tragedy.

[ 28. May 2016, 02:02: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Is it historically accurate or a literary device to parallel the Moses-Egyptian slaughter? And where indeed was God during it? Busy with miracles about one baby so as to ignore everyone else?

I know everyone knows those questions. Not necessary to answer in any significant way. It did give us the carol We Three Kings and the parody with cigars, though I think Jingle Bells and shepherds washing socks are better parodies. Persia figured significantly in the awareness as an unconquered and exotic one-god land. It is interesting to reflect on the place of Persia in our consciouness from the days of Alexander the Great to Iran today. How is it that wisdom in the form of wise kings was not coming from Rome but from the Zoarastrian Persians, and what does that mean for the zeitgeist the Jesus times?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Let's just assume the historicity and stick to the point. Personally, I see no reason or justification for these things not being historical. If the synoptic Gospels were written to teach new converts or persuade potential ones, I fail to see how false history could possibly be useful. If the Jesus of the Gospels was not an historical figure then I can't see how the new converts in a dangerous anti-Christian world would even bother putting their faith in him - especially people from a Jewish background (Matthew's readership) who lived amongst fellow Jews who were unlikely to put their trust in anyone that wasn't fitting the requirement for a warrior-Messiah. Anything that would smack of falsehood would be immediately pounced upon!

I do not see any reason whatever to doubt the historicity of the wise men.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

Several thoughts come to mind in reply to the OP.

1. The Magi didn't know anything except their belief that a new king was to be born. They may have known nothing of Herod's character. So they naturally went to the "obvious" place, i.e. the Palace, in all innocence.

2. If they were coming a long way from the East, Bethlehem and Jerusalem would occupy almost the same vector in the sky. When you factor in the fact that the earth rotates, causing the sky to apparently move, it's not surprising if they got a bit muddled!

3. The passage implies that the star moved after the Magi visited Herod. That does sound implausible, unless it was a comet moving through the solar system.

There has been 2000 year's-worth of speculation on this matter ... as you say, the story raises real questions about the "goodness" or "favouritism" of God.

[ 27. December 2015, 14:40: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Several thoughts come to mind in reply to the OP.

1. The Magi didn't know anything except their belief that a new king was to be born. They may have known nothing of Herod's character. So they naturally went to the "obvious" place, i.e. the Palace, in all innocence.

2. If they were coming a long way from the East, Bethlehem and Jerusalem would occupy almost the same vector in the sky. When you factor in the fact that the earth rotates, causing the sky to apparently move, it's not surprising if they got a bit muddled!

3. The passage implies that the star moved after the Magi visited Herod. That does sound implausible, unless it was a comet moving through the solar system.

There has been 2000 year's-worth of speculation on this matter ... as you say, the story raises real questions about the "goodness" or "favouritism" of God.

Actually, I never suggested that the story raised any questions about the goodness or favouritism of God. I am suggesting that had they waited, they would have followed the star straight to Bethlehem where it was going anyway. To involve the King, unwittingly caused great hardship.

The lesson I draw out is that God provides perfect leadership and that sometimes, even though we veer off from his path, he gives a second chance to follow where he wants us to go.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Perhaps you misunderstand, I am only suggesting the Kings might be nonhistorical not Jesus in my reply, but if you want me to post no further because I don't clearly accept the historicity of the kings I will. I think they may be either. It isn't false history, it is about how we tell stories to eachother through the centuries.

[ 27. December 2015, 14:51: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I didn't misunderstand you at all. What I would want to do is to put myself into the shoes of a Jew in AD70 when all hell is breaking loose and you are trying to tell me that Jesus is the Messiah.

You then tell me that the stories surrounding his birth are not actual history, and then, how other things are not real history - maybe including the empty tomb, though the execution on the cross might be real...

...and I, as a Jew under a bit of pressure just for being Jewish, and not wanting the pressure of accepting as the Messiah some random bloke to whom and about whom nothing extraordinary happened and I might well ask you - Jesus who?

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

You make the point, emphasized when you pick 70 AD. I think you do misunderstand: 'people telling stories', no gospels yet, most NT things yet to be written. Other things not in the NT also yet to be written. Lots of stuff being said. Christianity not formed much, are we done the Acts episodes at 70 AD?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
My sermon this morning was about the Wise Men. It occurred to me when I was preparing, and reading about the slaughter of the innocents that actually it was all the wise men's fault and that their visit to Herod was entirely unnecessary.

This is bullcrap. It is not "all their fault." You absolve Herod, the murderer, of any responsibility for his actions. Madness.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

There's no sense in blaming the wise men. Anybody would head for the palace, particularly if from out of town (country) and used to the idea of kings having many wives and children. Me, I would have figured it was a grandson or younger son of Herod. And regardless of the actual behavior/nature of the star, Bethlehem is only a couple of miles down the road... The star would have had to be a single object and very low indeed, to be able to distinguish the two locations. And there is this thing called "daytime"...

As it is, we are not told that the star was always physically visible to the wise men. They saw it in the East, good, but from then on it is possible, even likely, they were left to get on with what they knew already--that it pertained to a king of the Jews, therefore go to Judea. It appears to have become visible again only after they met Herod.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
My sermon this morning was about the Wise Men. It occurred to me when I was preparing, and reading about the slaughter of the innocents that actually it was all the wise men's fault and that their visit to Herod was entirely unnecessary.

What were they thinking?? Telling a King that his rival had been born and "Where is he please?"! (Unless, of course, they assumed it was his heir!) But how could they not have known about Herod and the political situation? Fancy telling a despotic King that there was a new-born pretender to the throne!

Actually, the biblical account doesn't say the Wise Men went to Herod or his palace. It just says that they went to Jerusalem and asked where the King of the Jews was. It is entirely possible that they were simply asking around, perhaps very discreetly (or as discreetly as such exotic foreigners could be). But Herod with his spies everywhere got to hear of it anyway. Then he calls the priests and scribes, gleans what information he can from them, and then summons the Wise Men. And who knows how gentle that summons was? Might Herod have sent his heavies to drag them to the palace? And then Herod "found out from them the exact time the star had appeared." How did he get this information out of them at this "secret" meeting? Might torture have been involved?

Moreover, the story says that the Wise Men "saw his star when it rose". That first sighting of the star seems to have given them all the information they needed to set out on a journey: the King of the Jews has been born. It doesn't say that they literally followed the star all the way to Jerusalem, and nor would they need a star to follow, if they know already that they are looking for a King of the Jews. They are following not the actual star itself, but their understanding of the star. New King of the Jews? Just head for Judea! Capital city will do fine.

In fact, when "the star they had seen when it rose" comes back to guide them the very short distance from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, they are "overjoyed" - as if they have missed the thing, and here it is as confirmation that they are indeed on the right track. They don't actually need to star to guide them to Bethlehem, because Herod has already directed them there (though they do need it to guide them specifically to the stable). But on the whole, the star is not so much a kind of "This Way" sign, as a portent to be interpreted.

Much of the above is pure speculation, of course. But no more so than assuming the Wise Men were bumbling fools who failed to follow God's sign. And as this is a story that carries a whole lot of legendary baggage, it has to be read very carefully indeed, or we end up preaching the legend rather than what is actually said.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Actually the text does not say they went to the stable. It came to rest over the place where the paidion (KJV young child) was. (Mt 2:9) And they went into the oikia (KJV house; Strong defines it as "domicile"). (Mt 2:11)

Given that they told Herod when they had seen the star, and Herod in accordance killed all the babies 2 years and younger, it would appear that Jesus was about 2 when the Wise (or not) Men visited. Which makes sense if his family was in a house and not a barn. Generally portents in the heavens of auspicious births come at the time of the birth, not two years earlier.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
My sermon this morning was about the Wise Men. It occurred to me when I was preparing, and reading about the slaughter of the innocents that actually it was all the wise men's fault and that their visit to Herod was entirely unnecessary.

What were they thinking?? Telling a King that his rival had been born and "Where is he please?"! (Unless, of course, they assumed it was his heir!) But how could they not have known about Herod and the political situation? Fancy telling a despotic King that there was a new-born pretender to the throne!
Actually, the biblical account doesn't say the Wise Men went to Herod or his palace. It just says that they went to Jerusalem and asked where the King of the Jews was.... And as this is a story that carries a whole lot of legendary baggage, it has to be read very carefully indeed, or we end up preaching the legend rather than what is actually said.

Exactly. It seems to me that there are quite a few assumptions built into the OP that rest more on the legendary baggage than on the text.

The text (in Greek) doesn't say they were wise men. It says they were magi, which is probably better translated something more like astrologers. They saw the rise of a star, which they interpreted to signal the birth of the King of the Jews. (I have read some speculation that they may have been descendants of Jewish exiles in Persia, and were familiar with the expectation of a Messiah. Who knows?)

As you note, the text does not say that they followed the star to Jerusalem; it simply says they saw the rise of the star and, as a result, arrived in Jerusalem. The way in which they asked everyone "where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?" suggests that they arrived expectating the birth to be a widely known, and perhaps widely celebrated, event. Perhaps, especially if they made the Messianic connection, they assumed that any Jew, Herod included, would be rejoicing about the birth. In any event, the text is clear that Herod sent for them, not that they sought Herod out. (My hunch is that Herod used little if any torture; the text suggests it was more like sweet-talk. Had torture or coercion been involved, I doubt the magi would need to have been warned in a dream to avoid Herod on the trip home.)

Matthew appears to have been writing for a readership of Jewish Christians after the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple and the massacre of those around the Temple. That would for them have been a defining event as Jews, even if Jews who were also Christians and Greek-speakers living outside Judea or Galilee. They would have understood well Herod's complicity in the Roman occupation, as well as the brutality of the Romans that essentially brought an end to Jewishness as they had always known it. As Jews, their world had changed dramatically. As Christians, they were trying to make sense of how the Christ figured in this new reality.

I suspect that the echoes of the Moses story resonated strongly with them. I'd guess that that when they heard the story as told by Matthew, what they took from it was not that the magi somehow screwed up. They saw in the story God's provision for the safety of the One who came to deliver Israel and Gentile alike in the face of unspeakable cruelty by the rulers of this world.

That's my hunch at least.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

Good point, Mousethief. I got careless! [Smile]

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

There is other evidence to consider, which may or may not give weight to the Biblical accounts.

History does not tell us outside of Christian tradition and the Bible of the genocide in Bethlehem. It does tell us something about Herod's character, that he had one of his wives, said to be his favourite, and their son executed because they were seen a a threat to Herod's reign. Herod also decreed that some Jews be killed at his death so that there would be weeping in Jerusalem. Slaughter of people seen as a threat is within what we know of his character.

Archaeology tells us that Herod built a fortified palace, Herodium, near Bethlehem, which is now the Herodyun National Park. Herodium, and therefore Bethlehem, would have been a great place to mount a military coup.

Of Herodium, the Jewish historian Josephus said:

quote:
"Two hundred steps of purest white marble led up to it. Its top was crowned with circular towers; its courtyard contained splendid structures."

So Herod finds out

that there is a rival to the throne born.
the rival is near Herodium, a good place for a coup.

Given that ancient history from this period is sketchy at least, there is good reason to say that the events in Matthews Gospel are if not true, then at least based on fact.

Posted by Adam. (# 4991) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Did the star wait until the words were read out about Bethlehem Ephratah, and on discovering the venue, went and dutifully shone there? No!

Actually, that seems to be just what the text says. Matt 2:9

quote:

οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες τοῦ βασιλέως ἐπορεύθησαν καὶ ἰδοὺ ὁ ἀστήρ, ὃν εἶδον ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ, προῆγεν αὐτούς, ἕως ἐλθὼν ἐστάθη ἐπάνω οὗ ἦν τὸ παιδίον.
When they had heard the king, then went on and lo! the star, that they saw at its rising, went ahead of them, until it came and stood over the place where the boy was.

The Magoi, the best of Pagan wisdom (see the many Jewish texts, eg. Wis, that lift up astrology as the least silly form of Pagan worship) can't find the Messiah without the aid of (Jewish) revelation. Once they've got this, God provides a miracle, and they find the Christ.

It's a study in miniature of how Gentiles can find Christ: they need (Jewish) revelation.

Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
My sermon this morning was about the Wise Men. It occurred to me when I was preparing, and reading about the slaughter of the innocents that actually it was all the wise men's fault and that their visit to Herod was entirely unnecessary.
This is bullcrap. It is not "all their fault." You absolve Herod, the murderer, of any responsibility for his actions. Madness.

A very 21st century way to look at things.

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Mudfrog, given that your observation is raised in the context of Kerygma, I don't think your interpretation is that intended by the gospel writer.

ISTM that Matthew intended the Magi to be instruments in the necessary fulfilment of prophecy, which would have been avoided had they behaved as you suggest they ought to have done: namely: Hosea 11:1 (Out of Egypt have I called my servant) and Jeremiah 31:15 (Rachel weeping for her children.

Regarding the historicity of the events you might wish to consider the observations of St. John Chrysostom re the star <http://www.anastasis.org.uk/Star%20of%20Bethlehem.htm> .

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adam.:
The Magoi, the best of Pagan wisdom (see the many Jewish texts, eg. Wis, that lift up astrology as the least silly form of Pagan worship) can't find the Messiah without the aid of (Jewish) revelation. Once they've got this, God provides a miracle, and they find the Christ.

It's a study in miniature of how Gentiles can find Christ: they need (Jewish) revelation.

Very interesting point,

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
My sermon this morning was about the Wise Men. It occurred to me when I was preparing, and reading about the slaughter of the innocents that actually it was all the wise men's fault and that their visit to Herod was entirely unnecessary.
This is bullcrap. It is not "all their fault." You absolve Herod, the murderer, of any responsibility for his actions. Madness.
A very 21st century way to look at things.

That the person who orders a murder is morally responsible for it? Really? This was never known before the 21st century? What books have you not been reading?

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Regarding the historicity of the events you might wish to consider the observations of St. John Chrysostom re the star <http://www.anastasis.org.uk/Star%20of%20Bethlehem.htm> .

Working version of link. (UBB software is allergic to those percent marks.)

Thanks for the interesting article.

Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:
Originally posted by Adam.:
The Magoi, the best of Pagan wisdom (see the many Jewish texts, eg. Wis, that lift up astrology as the least silly form of Pagan worship) can't find the Messiah without the aid of (Jewish) revelation. Once they've got this, God provides a miracle, and they find the Christ.

It's a study in miniature of how Gentiles can find Christ: they need (Jewish) revelation.
Very interesting point,

Seconded.

Jesus was worshipped by Gentiles at his birth for being the King of the Jews. Jesus was killed by the Gentiles for being the King of the Jews. Is there something to this, if only an inclusio?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
Jesus was worshipped by Gentiles at his birth for being the King of the Jews. Jesus was killed by the Gentiles for being the King of the Jews. Is there something to this, if only an inclusio?

I don't know what an "inclusio" is, but it is an interesting point to ponder!

Posted by Adam. (# 4991) on :

An inclusio (plural: inclusiones) is when the two pieces of bread in a sandwich have something in common, ie. the beginning and the end of a unit share features in common not shared by the middle.

There are a lot of inclusiones between the infancy narratives and the Passion in Matthew.

One that I reflected on today (preaching on the Holy Innocents), is the word ἐμπαίζω (empaizO, meaning 'mock' or 'deceive'). Herod is empaizoed in 2:16, and Jesus is empaizoed in 27:29, 31, 41 (and in a Passion prediction in 20:19). Different sense of the word, but what's so striking is the different reaction!

Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on :

Sandwiches- an excellent explanation!

Gospel writers use this device a lot- things get bracketed together to make a theological point. It's worth keeping an eye open for them to see the theme the Gospeller is trying to get across (although it's usually easier when writers spot them for you).

Here's a page with some more examples for beginning and end of the Gospels- link . Another example is the double inclusio in John's signs section around the themes of glory and belief (2:11 through to 11:40).

All of which makes me wonder if there's intended significance to the response from Gentiles changing from bowing the knee (Magi) to killing (Romans). Or not.

Posted by sharkshooter (# 1589) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
My sermon this morning was about the Wise Men. It occurred to me when I was preparing, and reading about the slaughter of the innocents that actually it was all the wise men's fault and that their visit to Herod was entirely unnecessary.
This is bullcrap. It is not "all their fault." You absolve Herod, the murderer, of any responsibility for his actions. Madness.
A very 21st century way to look at things.
That the person who orders a murder is morally responsible for it? Really? This was never known before the 21st century? What books have you not been reading?

You misunderstood me - I was agreeing with you.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
You misunderstood me - I was agreeing with you.

My mistake then. Apologiae.

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Adam

quote:
It's a study in miniature of how Gentiles can find Christ: they need (Jewish) revelation.

I beg to disagree. What I find particularly striking about the story of the Magi is that their non-Jewish religion led them independently of it to Bethlehem i.e. their own Old Testament of God led them to Christ.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Adam
quote:
It's a study in miniature of how Gentiles can find Christ: they need (Jewish) revelation.
I beg to disagree. What I find particularly striking about the story of the Magi is that their non-Jewish religion led them independently of it to Bethlehem i.e. their own Old Testament of God led them to Christ.

Except according the text, it didn't. They didn't know to go to Bethlehem until the scribes told them that was the prophecy, and the star didn't reappear to show them the exact spot until they had already been told that Bethlehem was the place to look. That's why they arrived in Jerusalem asking everyone "where is the child?" They didn't know where to go next.

According to the text, their own wisdom and their own religion showed them the significance of what was happening and brought them to Jerusalem. They needed guidance from the locals on what to do next.

Posted by Rev per Minute (# 69) on :

quote:
Posted by Nick Tamen:
Matthew appears to have been writing for a readership of Jewish Christians after the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple and the massacre of those around the Temple. That would for them have been a defining event as Jews, even if Jews who were also Christians and Greek-speakers living outside Judea or Galilee. They would have understood well Herod's complicity in the Roman occupation, as well as the brutality of the Romans that essentially brought an end to Jewishness as they had always known it. As Jews, their world had changed dramatically. As Christians, they were trying to make sense of how the Christ figured in this new reality.

Except that Herod had been dead for 70 or so years by then and the legacy of the tetrarchs and procurators would have been far closer. The stories of his crimes would probably have magnified over the decades so that the murder of all the children in a small town would have sounded quite plausible. But they would probably not have looked to blame Herod for the destruction of Jerusalem. In fact, a 'sensible' Jewish Christian, looking to live a quiet life in 60s/70s Palestine, might perhaps have blamed the Zealots for bringing the might of Vespasian's armies against them.

[ 29. December 2015, 18:30: Message edited by: Rev per Minute ]

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

Nick Ramen

quote:
According to the text, their own wisdom and their own religion showed them the significance of what was happening and brought them to Jerusalem.

Au contraire, my friend: as Mudfrog points out, it wasn't the failure of their wisdom that let them down them but their failure to stick to it by following the star. and when they did so it took them to Bethlehem. They did not need the wisdom of Judaism to help them.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Au contraire, my friend: as Mudfrog points out, it wasn't the failure of their wisdom that let them down them but their failure to stick to it by following the star. and when they did so it took them to Bethlehem. They did not need the wisdom of Judaism to help them.

I'll have to au contraire back, I fear. [Big Grin]

As pointed out earlier, the text does not say they followed the star in their journey from the East. That's later embellishment of the story. Nor does it say that the star could be followed before the magi actually set out for Bethlehem. The text (Matt. 2:1–2, 7 and 9–10, NRSV) says:

quote:
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." . . . Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. . . . When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.

So what the text says is that they saw the star at its rising, they came to Jerusalem and asked where the child was, that they described to Herod when the star had first appeared, that they were told to look in Bethlehem and that when they set out for Bethlehem, the star, in most unstar-like fashion (but very much in Shekinah-like fashion) actually went before them and stopped directly over a specific building.

The text, then, does not say the star led them to Jerusalem, or even that the star could be "followed" at that point. The text would seem to say the opposite, for if that's what they had done or what could be done, why wouldn't they say "for we saw his star at its rising and have followed it here" instead of "we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay homage"? (And if they followed the star to Jerusalem, why does no one else seem to have noticed it?)

[ 29. December 2015, 22:00: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

Not sure why I hadn't thought about this before but... why would the family still be in Bethlehem two years later? They only went there for the registration. Why didn't they go back to Nazareth?

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

It doesn't say the Holy Family was there two years later. It does say that Herod ordered the death of all boys under the age of two years old. One could imagine that, not knowing precisely when Jesus was born, Herod would allowed quite a bit of "leeway" to be sure of catching him. So Jesus may have been quite a bit younger than that ...

On a different line, I don't know how long "lying in" would have been for a first century Jewish mother. Also, I know families who have gone back to West Africa or the West Indies for a birth and stayed on for several months; perhaps the same sort of thing happened here.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

It seems to me that we are indeed meant to infer that the star moved and that the magi followed it. Why would it behave in a different way post-Jerusalem' than it did 'pre-Jerusalem'. Also, what justification is there to suggest any embellishments to the story?

[ 30. December 2015, 16:50: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It seems to me that we are indeed meant to infer that the star moved and that the magi followed it. Why would it behave in a different way post-Jerusalem' than it did 'pre-Jerusalem'.

As was pointed out, the text says that they saw the star in the east, not that they followed it to Jerusalem.

It behaved differently "post-Jerusalem" because the author means us to understand that it is no ordinary star, but one that has a spiritual origin. So it responds to the new information that the wise men received from the scholars in Jerusalem. In a sense the information and the star are the same thing.

As to your other questions, though, it does seem like the wise men might have acted differently to prevent the slaughter. Hard to know, though, since we weren't there. The context indicates to me that the wise men expected that this new king would be in the royal house in Jerusalem.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It seems to me that we are indeed meant to infer that the star moved and that the magi followed it. Why would it behave in a different way post-Jerusalem' than it did 'pre-Jerusalem'. Also, what justification is there to suggest any embellishments to the story?

But I would posit that inferring that the star moved in a guide-like fashion and that the magi followed it prior to the arrival in Jerusalem is the embellishment to the story. The magi tell the people of Jerusalem that they saw the star at its rising (or that they saw it "in the East"), not that they followed it. And the description of what happened when they set out for Bethlehem—"and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising"—suggests to me at least that the movement of the star was a new thing. The star that went ahead of them is described as the star that they had seen at its rising, not as the star they had previously followed.

Granted, it is something that one could assume or guess at. But I do not think it can be reasonably inferred from the text itself. I would argue that if we were meant to infer that they followed the star to Jerusalem, Matthew would have just come out and said it. As it is, what he wrote says nothing more than that they saw the star at its rising (which we are told twice) and that the star went before them when they set out for Bethlehem.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

It behaved differently "post-Jerusalem" because the author means us to understand that it is no ordinary star, but one that has a spiritual origin.

What is this 'spiritual origin'? What does that mean?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

I would still say that if there is only one star, and if it moved after the magi had been in Jerusalem, that it would have logically moved before that as well. I don't understand why the star that appeared in the sky 'in the East' but didn't move West, would suddenly appear over Jerusalem at te exact moment they were told the birth was in Bethlehem, and then start moving.

Why would it do that if it hadn't done it before?
As usual, trying to explain away the phenomenon only seeks to confuse matters.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

Did anyone else watch this evening's excellent "Sky at Night" on the subject on the BBC? Well worth watching, and takes the details of the Bible story seriously even if you disagree with the final verdict (which does explain the apparent movement in a way I'd never thought of).

[ 30. December 2015, 21:30: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Did anyone else watch this evening's excellent "Sky at Night" on the subject on the BBC? Well worth watching, and takes the details of the Bible story seriously even if you disagree with the final verdict (which does explain the apparent movement in a way I'd never thought of).

Oooh no; I shall watch it on iPlayer

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
It behaved differently "post-Jerusalem" because the author means us to understand that it is no ordinary star, but one that has a spiritual origin.
What is this 'spiritual origin'? What does that mean?

It seems clear that the author is describing the star as something magical or miraculous. Ordinary stars don't move around and guide people to specific places. This was a star sent from God to first signal somehow that the King of the Jews had been born. Then it appeared out of nowhere to lead the wise men to Jesus.

The story does not say this, but I would expect that this star would not have been visible to anyone but the wise men.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
It behaved differently "post-Jerusalem" because the author means us to understand that it is no ordinary star, but one that has a spiritual origin.
What is this 'spiritual origin'? What does that mean?
It seems clear that the author is describing the star as something magical or miraculous. Ordinary stars don't move around and guide people to specific places.

Indeed, and this star seems to have moved from North to South rather than from East to West, like all other stars do. It seems to have more in common with the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire that led Isreal through the desert than with ordinary stars.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

The star can also be thought of as the light of inner revelation - sort of a take on St Augustine's unravelling of "Let there be light" as the enlightenment of the angelic host. Perhaps more of a point for meditation though, rather than an explanation of the text.

Curiously enough, I was looking up a night or so ago at a couple of satellites: one low, bright and moving SSE to NNW, the other little more than a dot, very high and going NW to SE. Earlier this year, we had the conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and the space station. From our garden, Jupiter was moving N to S in the western sky, with the station crossing its path. Man-made satellites go in all sorts of directions.

Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :

For the best opener to a discussion on the star of Bethlehem can I re-refer to the issues raised by St John Chrysostom? The reference I gave last time was problematic due to my ignorance in such matters, but if one googles St John Chrysostom Star of Bethlehem you should get there!

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
It doesn't say the Holy Family was there two years later. It does say that Herod ordered the death of all boys under the age of two years old. One could imagine that, not knowing precisely when Jesus was born, Herod would allowed quite a bit of "leeway" to be sure of catching him. So Jesus may have been quite a bit younger than that ...

quote:
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
Matt 2:16

That's a LOT of leeway considering the info he had from the Magi.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
It doesn't say the Holy Family was there two years later. It does say that Herod ordered the death of all boys under the age of two years old. One could imagine that, not knowing precisely when Jesus was born, Herod would allowed quite a bit of "leeway" to be sure of catching him. So Jesus may have been quite a bit younger than that ...

quote:
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
Matt 2:16
That's a LOT of leeway considering the info he had from the Magi.

Indeed, especially when :

quote:
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. . . . When they had heard the king, they set out;

I imagine that Herod got that information from the men - i.e. the date they saw the star 'rise'; then he asked them how long it took them to get to Jerusalem and deduced from that the presumed age of the child. He then had to wait until he realised that the Wise Men were not coming back - give it a week...

Thus the two years.

Bear in mind also that Jesus was a week old when he was circumcised and 40 days old when Mary and Joseph took him to the temple for her purification and his presentation.

So he was at least 2 months old, I guess when the Magi appeared.

I wonder what the population of Bethlehem was and how many children under two years old...

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
So he was at least 2 months old, I guess when the Magi appeared.

I wonder what the population of Bethlehem was and how many children under two years old...

If the Magi were indeed from Persia, then the trip to Jerusalem would have been around 1,000–1,200 miles. I've read such a trip would have taken anywhere from a few months to a year or so, depending on the mode of travel.

As for the number, I don't know, but the Wiki article on the Holy Innicents says this:

quote:
[Raymond] Brown and others argue that, based on Bethlehem's estimated population of 1,000 at the time, the largest number of infants that could have been killed would have been about twenty, and R. T. France, addressing the story's absence in Antiquities of the Jews, argues that "the murder of a few infants in a small village [is] not on a scale to match the more spectacular assassinations recorded by Josephus".

FWIW.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
Not sure why I hadn't thought about this before but... why would the family still be in Bethlehem two years later? They only went there for the registration. Why didn't they go back to Nazareth?

Several very mundane reasons come to mind.
a) They didn't want to travel with a very young baby. It was their first, you know? They were therefore even more likely to think of him as highly breakable. And once you decide to stay a while, well, you tend to go on staying...
b) They decided to stay longer because Joseph had located relatives to help in Bethlehem (as perhaps he had not yet, that night of Jesus' birth). Alternately: Joseph had been offered a good job and was feeling his fatherly responsibilities.
c) They stayed so that the birth date would not be obvious to all the busybodies counting on their fingers back home.
d) they were escaping some particular busybody (likely a relative) they knew would make their lives miserable with unwanted advice and interference if they ventured within her (sorry) range with a baby. (Plenty of those around too)

I tend to think it's c) with a bit of a) too.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

The first appearance of the star did two things: it announced the coming of the King, and it provided them with a location where to look. Traditionally (but not Scripturally) it did that by moving, and they followed it; but it could equally well have done that by communicating information concerning the country to go to, i.e. Judea. For Magi, I expect it would do this by appearing in some relationship to a constellation etc. in such a way that their astrological system came up with "new king in Judea." I've heard astronomical explanations that make sense this way. It is also very likely that the Magi were familiar with the Septuagint and knew the prophecy about a star rising in Jacob (the one in Numbers) and put two and two together.

Once the Magi had the two concepts "new king" and Judea associated, the star might very well have disappeared. The fact that they greet it with such joyful surprise after their interview with Herod makes me think they hadn't seen it for a long while.

The fact that the second/later star appears to move and stand over the house makes me think that an obviously supernatural object. The first/earlier star might have been that, or it might have been God using a more ordinary astronomical object in a way the Magi would notice and understand.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
the star that appeared in the sky 'in the East'...

"in the east" can also be translated "when it rose." In which case we need not worry about its direction, as this would be a reference to the first sighting of the star.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
If the Magi were indeed from Persia, then the trip to Jerusalem would have been around 1,000–1,200 miles. I've read such a trip would have taken anywhere from a few months to a year or so, depending on the mode of travel.

I think we tend to overestimate how long it would take to travel in those days. 1,000-1,200 miles is not actually that far, and the trade routes would have been well established. In the UK, Land's End to John O' Groats is 874 miles, and someone has actually run the route in 9 days! According to wikipedia, Off-road walkers typically walk about 1,200 miles (1,900 km) and take two or three months for the expedition.

So even taking the larger estimate of 1200 miles from Persia to Jerusalem, at a fairly gentle average of 15 miles a day, the Magi would complete the journey in 3 months.

[ 31. December 2015, 16:59: Message edited by: Cottontail ]

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
So even taking the larger estimate of 1200 miles from Persia to Jerusalem, at a fairly gentle average of 15 miles a day, the Magi would complete the journey in 3 months.

Quite possibly. Long-distance walking is definitely not my thing, so I was just passing along what I've read.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Do keep in mind the requirements of water, food, protection, etc. for a good-sized party of people. You can't go as the crow flies, and you have to provision everyone and their mounts along the way.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Do keep in mind the requirements of water, food, protection, etc. for a good-sized party of people. You can't go as the crow flies, and you have to provision everyone and their mounts along the way.

Yes, all that too. Make it 10 miles a day then. Still only 4 months. Or double the time a relatively fit and unencumbered person could walk, and make it 6 months. Still a long way off two years. The Persian army once conquered Judea - it can't have been that impossible to get to. Unless the Magi are from even further afield - India or China, perhaps?

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

I once wrote a story for a series of Christmas books about the Magi, and had to give them quite a lot of extraneous, non-Biblical adventures in order to stretch their travel time to two years. They were captured and held prisoner in someone else's civil war for awhile.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
They were captured and held prisoner in someone else's civil war for awhile.

I never knew that!

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I once wrote a story for a series of Christmas books about the Magi, and had to give them quite a lot of extraneous, non-Biblical adventures in order to stretch their travel time to two years. They were captured and held prisoner in someone else's civil war for awhile.

You could have added some travails with having the wrong gifts delivered and having to try and get them exchanged...

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I wonder if we aren't putting too much of a 21st century spin on this. Buncha guys see an astronomical "sign" (presumably conjunction of two or more planets), look it up in their handy "Guide to Signs and Portents," read "king of Jews born," ask at the Babylonian Camel Club where Jewland is, toss some stuff in the back of the camel, and are on the road in 24 hours, if that.

More likely a bunch of starspotters saw the "star," and argued about it at their weekly anorak meetings until figured it out. Then they argued about whether they should do anything about it, like mount an expedition to bring gifts, or just send a Hallmark card and a candygram. Ultimately they decide to visit. They round up a retinue, hire guides, dicker at Neb's Rent-a-Camel, buy supplies, maybe get permission from the king for whatever reason, or try to get him to spring for the gold. (Maybe their original plan included platinum and a Murano cup-and-bowl set, but the cheap-arse king refused to chip in.)

Finally after all this they set out. That may not add a year and a half; we have no way of knowing. But some variant of that seems far more likely than the anachronistic idea that they set out immediately upon seeing the star.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

I think the scenario mousethief lays out is quite plausible—well, except maybe for the Hallmark card.

And I think it's also plausible to add that they told Herod that the star first appeared, say, around a year earlier, but Herod told his henchmen, "just to be safe, kill all the boys under two."

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Maybe boy baby genocide wasn't uncommon in those days, even when you're weren't attempting to eliminate a single possible messiah.
It would have been a good way to stifle future rebellions and uprisings which usually require an excess of males.

The three Wise Men from the East who reject the tranny of Herod has normally fitted neatly into a Gospel of Love and new relationship with God. I can't see a lot to be gained by associating them with slaughter of the innocents. Not unless the Church really wants to tweak stories and indulge in some serious soul-searching of itself.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I wonder if we aren't putting too much of a 21st century spin on this. Buncha guys see an astronomical "sign" (presumably conjunction of two or more planets), look it up in their handy "Guide to Signs and Portents," read "king of Jews born," ask at the Babylonian Camel Club where Jewland is, toss some stuff in the back of the camel, and are on the road in 24 hours, if that.

I'm not especially interested in how long it took the wise men to set out. The only point there is that Herod chose the age of the children he selected for slaughter (estimated to be less than 20 in the small village and its environs) according to the time that the wise men said that the star appeared. It was clearly not just weeks before.

The part that interests me is how they looked up the meaning of the star in their handy "Guide to Signs and Portents," and read "king of Jews born."

Clearly that would have been a tricky determination to make.

My own understanding is that the wise men received this cryptic information from angels, and that it took the form of both a visible star in the sky and a message from the angels about what it meant. Most likely the wise men would have been familiar with prophecies similar to the one Balaam gave in Numbers 24:17, and therefore had a context for understanding it.

This kind of supernatural explanation is consistent with the rest of the story, which assumes that angels do this sort of thing. It is especially fitting for magi to communicate with spirits and angels and interpret the symbolism of such things as stars, since that is what their "wisdom" was known to be all about.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I'm not especially interested in how long it took the wise men to set out.

No but apparently other people are, judging by the convo.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Most likely the wise men would have been familiar with prophecies similar to the one Balaam gave in Numbers 24:17, and therefore had a context for understanding it.

Yes, it's a shame they didn't know
Micah 5 v 2

That would have prevented a lot of trouble, as I said.

Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Most likely the wise men would have been familiar with prophecies similar to the one Balaam gave in Numbers 24:17, and therefore had a context for understanding it.
Yes, it's a shame they didn't know
Micah 5 v 2

That would have prevented a lot of trouble, as I said.

That's precisely the point, Mudfrog, the pagans read the signs and 'his own received him not' though they searched the Scriptures. By the way, read Ptolemy's works on ancient astronomy/astrology, guys. The star was 'en anatole', at its (heliacal) rising, rather than in the east; then it went retrograde... the magoi were of course Zoroastrian or Babylonian priests. The story, like so many others in the ancient world, and so many virgin births, assumes nothing cosmically portentous, only a special, royal chart... maybe Jupiter retrograde in some house or other, which would be bad luck for the reigning monarch.

Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
I think the scenario mousethief lays out is quite plausible—well, except maybe for the Hallmark card.

And I think it's also plausible to add that they told Herod that the star first appeared, say, around a year earlier, but Herod told his henchmen, "just to be safe, kill all the boys under two."

I like mousethief's scenario too - works for me! And yes, I very much doubt Herod's heavies were worried about the exact age of the children they were killing. More a case of Kill the very little kids, okay? As a rough guide, we're talking the ones still in nappies. Desperate pleas from a mother that their child was actually two-years-and-two-months would not have had much effect, I imagine.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
the magoi were of course Zoroastrian or Babylonian priests.

There is not universal agreement about this. I have always favored the argument that they were from Sheba.

quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
The story, like so many others in the ancient world, and so many virgin births, assumes nothing cosmically portentous, only a special, royal chart... maybe Jupiter retrograde in some house or other, which would be bad luck for the reigning monarch.

I would say that the story, and so many like it about virgin births, special children, and future kingdoms, does assume something cosmically portentous. My understanding is that messianic prophecy of one sort or another was a standard feature of the ancient world.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
They were captured and held prisoner in someone else's civil war for awhile.
I never knew that!

That's because I made it up. I mean, I looked up countries they might have passed through that were having civil unrest at the time (that was easy: nearly all of them) and made up a conflict that could stall the Wise Men for awhile. If I recall correctly I also threw in a bunch of what Mousethief suggests -- debate and discussion between the time they see the star and the time they set out. Hey, my version even has a runaway princess and a love story, but I wasn't sticking strictly to the Bible.

Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
the magoi were of course Zoroastrian or Babylonian priests.
There is not universal agreement about this. I have always favored the argument that they were from Sheba.

quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
The story, like so many others in the ancient world, and so many virgin births, assumes nothing cosmically portentous, only a special, royal chart... maybe Jupiter retrograde in some house or other, which would be bad luck for the reigning monarch.
I would say that the story, and so many like it about virgin births, special children, and future kingdoms, does assume something cosmically portentous. My understanding is that messianic prophecy of one sort or another was a standard feature of the ancient world.

"the idea that the magi were Persian Zorastrian philosopher-astrologers seems to be based only on the derivation of the word magi", well, yes, that's a pretty common way of calling Babylonian and Persian clergy through the ancient world. It's the usual Greek word for them... the Sheba lot, however, are almost completely undocumented.

Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :

Sorry, I should have added, that's pretty much always how the Persian clergy and astrologers are called in the Septuagint of the book of Daniel, he being appointed the chief one at some point, and in the LXX Torah... Sheba and other theories, on the other hand, seem to be favoured without any evidence, lexical or other, except the desire for Matthew's account to not give any backing to astrology. I don't believe in the stars myself, but Matthew was probably using any argument he could muster to show that Jesus was the messiah to people who overwhelmingly assumed astrology was science.

Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :

and another thing: Matthew was quite familiar with the Septuagint. He quotes from it most of the time, the most famous instance being 1.23, 'and the virgin shall conceive.'

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Sheba and other theories, on the other hand, seem to be favoured without any evidence, lexical or other, except the desire for Matthew's account to not give any backing to astrology.

I think that the ancient world was rife with prophets and mystics, prophets and sages. They were all called "magi" even though properly speaking it applied to the Persians.

So whether the wise men were from Persia or Sheba or somewhere else they would have been magi. Matthew's account gives so little information that there isn't much evidence in any case.

Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :

Fair enough, but the most logical conclusion to draw is that Matthew used the word as the Septuagint, which he quotes repeatedly used it. And there's a perfectly good Greek word for Sabaeans, he could have used it, he did not, which is rather puzzling as it would have conveniently fulfilled some prophecies, you know, 'Those from Saba and Sheba would come, bearing gifts...' etc

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Matthew's account gives so little information that there isn'bt much evidence in any case.

But Matthew does say that Magi "from the East" came to Jerusalem. Would anyone coming to Jerusalem from the southern Arabian peninsula be described as being "from the East"? I wouldn't think so.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
the desire for Matthew's account to not give any backing to astrology. I don't believe in the stars myself, but Matthew was probably using any argument he could muster to show that Jesus was the messiah to people who overwhelmingly assumed astrology was science.

Astrology WAS science back then--or it may be more accurate to say that astronomy and astrology were both the same "thing," and had not yet divided into science vs. pseudo-science yet. The major objection the Christian church had to this field was determinism--if you take horoscopes etc to their logical conclusion, they deny free will and provide a splendid excuse for all sorts of sin. But avoid that extreme and the ancients AFAIK had no theological objection to astrology/astronomy, though some, like Augustine, thought it was a lot of hooey.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Would anyone coming to Jerusalem from the southern Arabian peninsula be described as being "from the East"? I wouldn't think so.

Yes. They were all called "sons of the East." Besides, the southern Arabian peninsula is far to the East of Israel and travelers from there approached from the East.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Would anyone coming to Jerusalem from the southern Arabian peninsula be described as being "from the East"? I wouldn't think so.
Yes. They were all called "sons of the East." Besides, the southern Arabian peninsula is far to the East of Israel and travelers from there approached from the East.

Who were all called "Sons of the East"? Is that the same as the text saying they were "from the East"? (Likewise, is being from the East the same as approaching from the East?)

And while the southern Arabian peninsula is to the east of Judea, I wouldn't say it's "far" to the east. That would be like saying that some pone who came here from Brazil came from the East rather than from the South.

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
That would be like saying that some pone who came here from Brazil came from the East rather than from the South.

Sorry; "someone," not "some pone." It seems to me that someone in Judea describing someone from present-day Yemen as "from the East" would be like someone from the Southen US describing someone from Brazil as being "from the East."

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Who were all called "Sons of the East"?

The “sons of the East”, “people of the East”, or “Eastern peoples” is a biblical term used to describe various peoples East of Israel.

It is specifically associated with several places:

1. Syria, or Padan Aram, where Jacob went to find a wife: “Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the eastern peoples.” Genesis 29:1
2. The land of Uz, where Job lived. It is thought to be in Mesopotamia or Arabia. “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job… He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.” Job 1
3. Arabia, called Kedar in Scripture. “Arise, and attack Kedar and destroy the people of the East.” Jeremiah 49:29

The people of the East were thought to be wise:

quote:
“Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.” I Kings 4:30

So it makes sense that the “wise men” would be said to come from the East – which could have been Arabia, Sheba (the farthest tip of the Arabian Peninsula), Persia, or elsewhere.

Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
the desire for Matthew's account to not give any backing to astrology. I don't believe in the stars myself, but Matthew was probably using any argument he could muster to show that Jesus was the messiah to people who overwhelmingly assumed astrology was science.
Astrology WAS science back then--or it may be more accurate to say that astronomy and astrology were both the same "thing," and had not yet divided into science vs. pseudo-science yet. The major objection the Christian church had to this field was determinism--if you take horoscopes etc to their logical conclusion, they deny free will and provide a splendid excuse for all sorts of sin. But avoid that extreme and the ancients AFAIK had no theological objection to astrology/astronomy, though some, like Augustine, thought it was a lot of hooey.

Agreed, I was to thinking of the ancients, only of modern scholars who would prefer any explanation, even without evidence, except astrology, which is the best.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Trudy Scrumptious: Hey, my version even has a runaway princess and a love story, but I wasn't sticking strictly to the Bible.

Did you add a blue genie and a talking parrot?

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

The princess wasn't a ewe, by any chance?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

From the article positing a Sheban origin:

quote:
Also, the sixth century BC was the time they flourished? By the time of the Roman Empire the Medes were long gone. [...] Whether there was an active Zorastrian caste of astrologer-priests at the time of Christ’s birth is debatable.

Well, Pliny, who was born about twenty years after Christ, has a lot to say about the Magi in Natural History. Admittedly he thinks they are a bunch of charlatans ...

quote:
References to Midian, Ephah and Sheba abound in the Old Testament and the Arabian peninsula was much more the region of the Hebrews and their ancient neighbors than Persia.

In the time of David and Solomon, possibly. At the time of Christ there were lots and lots of Jews in Persia. They were the descendants of the exiles and the ancestors of the people who compiled the Talmud. They are the reason we have the books of Esther and Tobit.

Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :

I know, Ricardus, where do they get their facts from? The Parthians (like the Medes or Persians before) were just the current reigning tribe in the same empire, and they were annoyingly present at the time, to the Romans at least. They remained so well into the Byzantine period, till the Muslim conquest of the Arsacid empire. The extent to which they sponsored Zoroastrianism is academically disputed, but they certainly were around. Indeed there is firm evidence that some Parthian monarchs sponsored it wholeheartedly and that the Avesta was even compiled at the time.

Posted by Joesaphat (# 18493) on :

and the Books of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah. The Persian and Babylonian Jewry is also the main reason we have an Aramaic Talmud.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

I expect that a number of the assertions in the article I posted are debatable or just plain wrong.

The point was just that there is not universal agreement that the wise men were from Persia. Sheba and other places are perfectly viable alternatives.

To me the four best arguments for considering Sheba are:

1. That the term "magi" does not necessarily point to Persia. It was one of several common terms for the prophets, sages, magicians, etc. that were found throughout the ancient world.
2. Sheba is the only origin of frankincense and myrrh.
3. The Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon is an important precedent, showing an ancient connection with Israel and a tradition of bringing precisely the kinds of gifts to the king of Israel that the wise men brought.
4. Old Testament prophecy predicts that "the kings of Sheba and Seba will offer gifts" (Psalms 72, Isaiah 60, Jeremiah 6).

These are not overwhelming arguments. The wise men are just as likely to have come from Persia or somewhere else. No one knows where they were from, nor is it important. I made the comment I did only to counter the assertion that we know definitively that they were Persian.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Trudy Scrumptious: Hey, my version even has a runaway princess and a love story, but I wasn't sticking strictly to the Bible.
Did you add a blue genie and a talking parrot?

Sadly, no, as the animation budget was limited.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0