Justin Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 What was the basis for this element of the nativity story? The whole following a star will only lead one round in circles and not being able to see it in the daylight arguement aside, why did god chose three people to come from afar to visit him (Jesus was a small child by the time they arrived) and adorn him with gifts? Why not get some people a little closer to the region to come over for a visit? Is 3 symbolic of something? Are the wise men symbolic of something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonolithTMA Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 If I were to write the three wise men into the story, I would write them in with the intention of saying "Whoah! Dude! It's not just the locals that realize Jesus is the king of kings and all that shiznizzle, it's people from afar too!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Looking4Answers Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 Yeah, the three wise men story is a bit intriguing. I have not researched it, so if anyone has any information, that would be great. Here is what I remember about it, though: The Bible does not specifically state that there were three wise men. It only states that there were men from the east. Some people say there are three wise men because there are three gifts given. The Catholics, on the other hand, not only say that there were three men, but they even claim to know their names! This comes from Catholic church tradition. Why men from the east? That is a good question. Some have speculated that these men (or some of these men) may have come from the old Persian empire, which was generally east of Israel. If this was the case, according to this idea, then these people may have had some knowledge of the Old Testament. Remember, according to the Bible, the people of Israel were taken captive by the Assyrians, later the people of Judah (the southern kingdom after Israel split in two) was taken captive by the Babylonians. The Babylonians were conquered by the Persians (basically) and there was a strong Jewish presence there for quite a long time. According to the Bible, Daniel served the kings of both Babylon and Persia as one of their magi (wise men). If this was the case, then Daniel could have taught the other wise men about the "prophecies" and, if this information was handed down, then this could have accounted for the wise men "following the star". Now, I don't buy into this as being "true" but this is one explanation I had heard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Posted December 22, 2008 Author Share Posted December 22, 2008 If I were to write the three wise men into the story, I would write them in with the intention of saying "Whoah! Dude! It's not just the locals that realize Jesus is the king of kings and all that shiznizzle, it's people from afar too!" Yeah, that is what i am leaning with. They also were astrologers to. Who better to come and see the new god than filthy, pagan nomads... from afar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Posted December 22, 2008 Author Share Posted December 22, 2008 Looking4Answers, i watched an interesting show on the History Channel last night about the Star of Bethlaham. It mentioned precisely what you are talking about. That only three gifts are mentioned and that there could have been more than three men. It also said that if they followed anything, it was probably Jupitor, for it was very visible around the time jesus was supposedly born. It was in some kind of rare, close orbit with the earth or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ Fuego ♦ Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 I'd take the Jupiter thing with a grain or two of salt. The people of that time didn't know what stars were and some thought they were angels, but the astrologers certainly knew the planets were different and moved along different paths. The Greek word planet means wanderer. The text in question even says "and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was." Since I don't think they would have travelled in a straight line until they hit the house, the "star" sounds mobile. And for those that thought the stars were just angels or points of light, that would sound perfectly normal. But for us who know that stars are unimaginably enormous balls of nuclear fury, having one stop over the roof of our house is problematic at best. And since the writer of the gospel didn't get to interview the wise men, how could he know what they did or what they said to Herod in his palace chamber? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 I think the background to the story is more political than religious or mythical. But that's just my suspicion. Basically, I think that someone put that story in there because of early conflicts between pagan religion and the new Christians. The author wanted to show the reader that the old astrology religion was less worthy to the new religion. It was a way of "sticking it to them," by having the wise astrologers bow down to Jesus. And I also suspect the gifts had some direct meaning back then, like maybe they represented three major groups of astrologers or cults, and this was a way of telling that those beliefs were outdated and Jesus replaced them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sexton Blake Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 The nativity story was made up by the author of Matthew or Luke, so they would not just be copies of the earlier Mark. In 1801, a christian apologist invented the Q document to explain this. Josephus documented Herod's atrocities but neither he nor any other writer gives evidence of Herod killing Jewish babies in Bethlehem (which was only a small cave community at the time). I heard that christians wanted to put on a play about the "Three Wise Men" but couldn't find any christians who could play them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 L4A's answer is pretty close (not that I'm saying it happened or anything but that's not the point). Oddly enough the magi would have been respected and not seen as pagan. They would have likely been seen as a nod to the Jewish community in Babylon. The gifts represented the three aspects of the child (priest, prophet and king in no particular order). The planets were known as "wandering stars" and there were 7 back then. This included the sun and moon. There was a conjunction (quite a few actually which is why people try to place jesus' birth ~7 BCE now even though this conflicts horribly with G.Luke) and people have theorized if one of them was the inspiration for this event. Halley's Comet also should have made an appearance around 12BCE (a "hairy" star) so maybe this was the inspiration? Who knows. Logically, as has been pointed out, no star can lead anyone to a point on the ground so it's a plot device (though it may have some basis in reality...being inspired by one or more real astronomical event(s)). Stars represented deities or the divine (generally). So a falling/shooting star could be a "god" coming to earth or someone achieving godhood. It depending on the situation. Also a comet would be a sign of some important event (usually bad but it depended on what you needed). Stars are just plain tricky to interpret. The star of Bethlehem also disappears and then reappears in a different spot. Something no natural object does. At least not as described in the text. It appears in the east so they go west. Then they follow it to Jerusalem only to ask Herod for directions (Bethlehem is ~5-10 miles south of Jerusalem). Just after asking directions the star reappears over Bethlehem to the south so they could follow it the last bit. Apologists like to think natural phenomenon explain these things but I'd love to see them follow a conjunction (or two) to an unknown address. I don't care how good of an astrologer you are. This simply gives weight to the "science" of astrology. The wise men then leave by another route because an angel tells them to do so. Where was this angel with the directions? Oh, right, they needed to bump into Herod to let him know his replacement was just born so he could kill him. So that a ~70 year old man could go on a killing spree since there was no doubt this baby was a threat to his throne. All old men that are well over twice the average life expectancy are afraid of what a baby might do to him in another 15-20 years. Better get to killing babies. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PiracyOfTheHead Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 No, there is hidden symbolic meaning in the story, it has nothing to do with trying to pretend its a real star or anything like that, I have the answer for you but let me polish up my understanding of it so I can present it to you without mistakes. I just wrote this so you would know you have an answer to look forward to, its actually really cool. Its starting to look like the bible became a great place for secret knowledge to be passed along, people speaking in code to eachother from land to land down through the ages. I have been learning a lot about the hidden stuff in the scriptures and its not whacked out conspiracies or anything like that, its simply veiled messages. Hidden in plain sight type of stuff. Got to read between the lines......Im gonna getmy facts together and et back to this as soon as I can, great question Justin, once you hear what I am talking about you will get intrigued with the rest of whats going on in the scriptures, and in a lot of other things in life...theres so much out there that we miss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted December 23, 2008 Share Posted December 23, 2008 No, there is hidden symbolic meaning in the story, it has nothing to do with trying to pretend its a real star or anything like that, I have the answer for you but let me polish up my understanding of it so I can present it to you without mistakes. I just wrote this so you would know you have an answer to look forward to, its actually really cool. Oh, I see what you're getting at now. That's a different discussion altogether and something I wasn't addressing. I'll withhold comment (on whether or not I think it was a real star/comet/planet/etc.) for now. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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