I used to have a little lump of frankincense someone gave me, don’t remember if I still have it somewhere or not. But I see that similar lumps are dirt cheap.
Sure, today they are. But in the past, frankincense was expensive. That was not so much owing to the cost of production, but because, in pre-modern times, it was difficult to transport it from the site of production to the purchaser. Same as with spices, which are mostly dirt cheap today (with some exceptions, such as saffron, which really is difficult to produce in meaningful quantities).
They can’t have been all that Wise, that’s a choking hazard for a baby.
Johnny Appleseed did exactly that… but only in parts of North America. Or do you mean pre-columbus?
…and watch the budget?
“Legend” has it that Jesus spent a portion of his twenties preaching in the Americas (in the flesh, so to speak). Supposedly, he is the inspiration for Quetzalcoatl (even though Q is represented as a feathered serpent). Again, the von Däniken folks may have been playing fast and loose with the legends so some of the “facts” may be skewed.
Just to clarify- this isn’t even hinted at in any book of the Bible.
Just to clarify, the OP states a willingness to consider sources other than the Bible.
And I think that the scare quotes around “legend” make it clear that @burpo_the_wonder_mutt is referring to very ill-reputed sources.
I think it’s also part of Latter-Day Saint doctrine that Jesus came to the Americas at some point, though I’m not sure if that was supposed to be before or after his time in the Middle East.
From what I remember of my Catholic upbringing, we were told repeatedly that not much was known of Jesus’s life between the ages of 12 and 30 (so, don’t ask?).
And I apologize for going so far afield from the OP.
Actually, I was thinking of this:
When I was in Catholic grade school the nuns made a point of how poor Jesus was in order to make us feel sorry for him. One bright student pointed out the wise men gave him a gift of gold! Poor Sister Mary hesitated of a moment then responded, well it wasn’t a lot of gold.
In his exhaustive work The Birth of the Messiah, Raymond C. Brown notes that:
“It has been suggested that in some instances (especially those dealing
with Sheba in Arabia) where the Bible seems to speak of gold. the translation is
an error. The Hebrew word for gold is zahiib, reflecting a proto-Semitic root
rjM, “gold.” However, South Arabic has a word from the root rjhb referring to
an aromatic substance. Therefore, there may have been a word rjahab (Hebrew
zahiib) referring both to gold and to a type of incense. In most Semitic lan-
guages the more common usage as “gold” would have eventually drowned out
the usage as “incense,” Ryckmans, “De 1’0r,” suggests that in Isa 60:6 (“The
young camels from Midian and Ephah. all those from Sheba will come; they
will bring gold and frankincense”) Hebrew ziihab may refer to incense rather
than to gold. since it is yoked to frankincense. Obviously, by the time Matthew
wrote, the meaning “gold” was accepted,”
So, maybe no gold at all.
But why would Matthew list frankincense twice in the same account? Or is the incense which “gold” supposedly refers to something different from frankincense?
Myrrh is a type of incense. Frankincense is a different type of incense. “Gold” would have been a third type.
I thought Quetzalcoatl was an Irish monk.
Whether it was gold or incense, though, the point remains that it was something valuable. And likewise in Isaiah 60:6 : The point there is that the riches of the world are coming to the Israelites.
No, no, that’s Quetzal O’Cottle. Easy to get them mixed up, I know.
He liked frankincense.
A cursory examination of the “Quetzalcoatl” main Google page will confuse you big time.
It never specified exactly how much gold was given, but early art usually shows the gifts in fancy cups.
One of these cups I’ve estimated to be about 6 fluid ounces of volume in the full cup. I don’t think the magi filling the entire thing with gold so let’s say half of the cup was full of gold. That works out to a VERY ESTIMATED guess of about 3.777 pounds of gold or 171.004323 kilograms.(Feel free to correct the math )