Three wise men?

[jo]

[Josh]

[A#minor]

I've also heard that the wise men were most likely Babylonian, and that they probably heard of the prophecy of the Messiah from Daniel while he was in captivity. We know that Daniel prophesied of the Second Coming of Christ and His kingdom (Daniel 2:44; 7:13, 27), so it is likely that the wise men had these writings and comparing them with other prophetic writings, and determined that a star would appear, etc...
However, they must not have had the book of Micah, or they wouldn't have had to ask Herod where the Christ would be born.


Here's an interesting verse I found:
Numbers 24:17 says, "...there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel..."

[Josh]

A couple other things about the wisemen:

1) Contrary to most nativity scenes, they would not have arrived in Bethlehem until Jesus was several months old.

2) There were three gifts, not necessarily three wise men (although there apparently was more than one--the word is plural). Chances are, there was a whole caravan of magii.

[A#minor]

[Josh]

[Shadowland Dweller]

[alecto]

I suppose who you think the wise men were depends on how literally you read Matthew. The literal term is magoi which is itself a technical term borrowed from ancient Persian and referring to a member of the Medean (Iranian) priest caste. It probably means "great one" though it may also be from a phrase "gift of god". "Great one" is what speakers of Greek would probably think. It may be that the common meaning of the word was merely "a man from Persia" but I doubt that. The agective magikos is too steeped in, well, magic, for that. So we're supposed to think that the magi were priests from Iran, which would almost certainly make them Zoroastrians.

But now, depending on how metaphorically or otherwise non-literally you interpret scripture, you can go from here however far you want. I don't know why some people say they might be Babylonian priests. It is possible that any priest from the East was called a magos. But from a logical standpoint, Iranian is far more likely. Zoroastrianism had a supreme deity, subservient deities (angels) and an arch adversary (Satan). It's a lot easier to imagine real magi "passing the torch" to Christ than Babylonian priests doing so.

[alliebath]

I would agree with you, alecto, that the likelihood is that the magi/magoi were Zoroastrian, who believed in (and who their successors the Parsees still believe in) the God of Light Ahura Mazdah, his prophet Zarathustra, and also the God of Darkness Ahriman. Ahura Mazda’s son Mithras (whose birth was commemorated on December 25th) was a Saviour-figure, and became a popular patorn god among the Roman military, where they formed Mithras clubs or societies, and were baptized under streaming bull’s blood. So there is an interesting amount of cross-overs between the Matthaean birth narrative and its subsequent development in Christianity. It is also likely that this Persian faith influenced Judaism during the Exile in Babylon.

I see a danger in quoting Tanakh/the OT as evidence of prophecy. Daniel was written during the time of the Maccabees (the Inter-Testamental period), and assumptions of a Messiah were therefore backdated and looked authentic only because the history had already happened. It is quite clear that Jesus is only associated with Nazareth, and I suspect the whole Bethlehem bit was put in to coincide with such obscure prophecies about Bethlehem, assuming it is the same Bethlehem.

As well as astrology being an important branch of knowledge in the classical era, if Zoroastrians, the magoi would also be worshippers of the Sacred Fire (as the Parsees are today).

[alecto]

[alliebath]