I’ve been listening to Amahl and the Night Visitors over the last week or so (you celebrate Christmas your way, and I’ll celebrate mine).
Two questions – are the Magi and the Three Kings the same guys? Or were there two separate trios headed East?
And – why did the trio(s) head East? Did they just see the star and think, “cool, star, let’s see what it will lead us to,” or was there some additional prophecy or message involved?
twicks, Ph.D. in Religion who ain’t a Christian and who knows zip about the Bible
Yes, the Magi and the Kings (and the wise men) are all the same. The bible actually says very little about them and even that there were three is part of the myth, not part of the bible. (Probably stemming from the three gifts mentioned.) They are only mentioned in Matthew. They were probably from Persia (if they existed) Hmmm. It has been a long long time since I read about them. I will have to do more research. Probably by then someone else will have given a more thorough answer. However, here is an interesting link
Same guys: “Three Kings,” “Wise Men,” and “Magi” mean the same thing.
Point of fact: Matthew never says how many they were or what the deal with the star was, only that (1) they brought three gifts, specified as of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; and (2) their reason was that “they saw His star in the East” and “it led them to the house where Jesus was.”
Data of value in trying to explain it: It’s highly likely that “the Three Wise Men from the East” were in fact Magi, Zoroastrian religious scholars. (If they were anything with a real life referent; Matthew is believed by most scholars to not have been above making stuff up to support his case that Jesus was the Messiah expected by the Jews.) The Magi had a highly developed astrology, with Zodiacal signs attributed to various nationalities. The “Star” which they saw may have been a multi-planet conjunction of planets implying king and religious leader in the sign suggesting Israel, which in fact is supposed to have happened in 5 BC. IIRC, there are also Chinese but not Western records of a supernova, I believe a relatively dim one, at about that time, though one of our resident astronomers would have to confirm or correct that. All this is purely speculative, not confirmed by Scripture. Secular history tells us of the Magi and their astrology, but not that three (or any other number) of them hightailed it to Bethlehem at any given time. And there’s been any amount of stuff written about the star, attributing it as everything from a supernatural apparition moving around in the atmosphere to a UFO.
The names (C/Gaspar, Melchoir, and Balthazar), Balthazar’s alleged black ethnicity, the allegation that they were kings, their connection with the city Cologne, etc., are all things added to the legend much later.
Same guys.
Matt says: 3 guys show up at Herod’s palce in Jerusalem asking about the king of the Jews since they saw a star in the East.
Cum ergo natus esset Iesus in Bethleem Iudaeae in diebus Herodis regis ecce magi ab oriente venerunt Hierosolymam.
So Jerome, at least, says Magi-- wise men. I don’t read Greek. . .
And. . . looking at the other books I see that’s it. They don’t show up inthe Protoevangelion of James. I think most of what we think we know is from Medieval tradition, like Pseudo-Bonaventure et al.
Well first off the Bible says they are magi from the east and hence they headed west, not east.
The Bible itself only says they saw a new star in the east, which is not at all clear in meaning. The passage is usually interpreted to mean they saw the star while they were living in the east, which makes sense being eastern residents. The star itself may have been in the northern or western sky. Being astrologers, they knew this was sign of the birth of a king of the Jews, presumably because of the date and where it rose or set. Sensibly enough they set out to Jerusalem, the Jewish capital, to pay their respects. There is no mention of them actually following the star west and for all we know the star was only visible for one night. They simply saw the appropriate sign for the birth of a Jewish king and went to Jerusalem on the strength of that.
Of course if the passage is interpreted to mean that they saw the star in the eastern sky then they could not possibly have followed the star to Jerusalem. A person living in Persia (for example) following a star he sees in the eastern sky will end up in India, not Israel.
After they got to Jerusalem the current ruler was a little surprised that they had turned up, since he had no new children. On the basis of a prophecy that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem he sent them off there to find the child.
On the way form Jerusalem to Bethlehem they saw the star again and they then followed it to Jesus. But note that the distance from Jerusalem to Bethlehem is only about 5 miles, or just a few of hours walk and less for men on horses or camels. So they probably only followed the star itself for a few hours at most.
I knew “magi” and “wise men” were more or less synonymous, but wasn’t sure about their kingship (since the intelligentsia and royalty don’t always overlap ). In Amahl, they’re definitely kings – though kings of what isn’t entirely clear to me.
The zodiac thing makes sense – the sign and the significance of the sign all tied up in one bright night object.
Hans Holzer, better known for his books on ghosts, branched out and did a study of the Magi that I read as a kid in the Sunday Supplements. It impressed me at the time – he actually tried to find the three kings in history, and seemed to have succeeeded.
Many years later, as a grad student, I stumbled across his work again. I hadn’t realized it, but he’d expanded it into a book. I eagerly read it.
What a letdown! What had seemed so impressive to me as a kid looked like incredibly sloppy and biased research to me as an adult. I don’t have any faith in his results, or the historical reality of his three kings.
As for the names, my recollection is that they are, in fact, named in one of the non-canonical books of the Bible that appears in my copy of “The Lost Books of the Bible”, but I don’t recall which one. It’s at home right now. If true, the “traditional” names are pre-Medieval, since most of those books were written in the first few centuries of the Christian era.
Nothing to add about the Magi…I just wanted to shout out to Amahl…
o/` This is all we peasants can offer you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you kindly.
Thank you, thank you, thank you kindly.
Thank you, good friends,
for your laughter and your gifts.
But now we must bid you goodnight.
We have little time to sleep
and a long journey aheeeeead… o/`
Given the hypothesis that it was astrology the Magi were using, it’s possible that (as someone mentioned earlier in this thread) they were seeing a new star in the constellation that represented Israel, which could have very well been “in the east” at the time.
The idea that they literally followed the star as it moved from Persia to Bethlehem isn’t demanded by the text.
). In Amahl, they’re definitely kings – though kings of what isn’t entirely clear to me.
