:smack: And I always thought it was Harold!
No. no. It’s the Harold angels, to whose singing we ought to hark.
The Master speaks…
DTC gives the GQ answer.
Let me elaborate a bit Matthew was (probably) written to Jews who were familiar with Old Testament prophecy and (probably) was written to convince these Jews that Jesus was the promised Messiah, a greater King than David, and a more righteous lawgiver than Moses.
So when reading Matthew’s birth narrative you can ask do the Magi contain prophecies that were fulfilled (Isaiah 60.3 is the one most cited) or try to show that Jesus is recognized by some of the perceived the wisest & most respected men of the time as a great King right from the start (yes).
IMO if you absolutely need to read the story literally, there is no reason for the gifts to be “swag” they are clearly meant, even in the story, to be symbolic (even if we have lost the exact meaning of this symbolism) and the wise men can be thought of as more less Steven Hawking, Richard Dawkins and The Amazing Randi showing up at an Atheist’s Baby birth and noting him as a great learned man and leaving gifts: cool & symbolic but I would hardly expect them to be valuable enough to set the kid up for life or even to finance a big trip (IOW it is not like Buffet, Gates & The Sultan of Brunei were the gift givers). There is no reason that the three mentioned gifts need to be extraorinarily valuable, life changing or thier disposition notable in a notable life.
But he went by “Howie” for short. As a matter of fact I have it on good authority that he had a personalized carpenter’s belt with “Howie” written on the back.
E3
actually that’s inaccurate. There’s a whole bunch of Gospels that weren’t included in the canon. A comitte decided which stories would be put into the offical 'church sanctioned" Bible. I remember reading an excerpt from when Jesus was a little boy…it was almost exactly like that Twillight Zone episode about that little boy who nobody can cross, and who does all this naughty stuff! :eek:
Are you sure it’s not “Hark, the hairlipped angels sing… gwory tooo na newborn keeeng” (sung in my version of what a hairlipped person might sound like).*
*my apologies in advance to anyone who is offended by this joke, or suffers from a cleft lip.
What did the rubber cigar symbolize? It was loaded; it exploded.
That would be the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Jesus is like Damien in that one. It’s mid to late 2nd Century. There’s an Infancy Gospel of James from about the same time.
If I recall correctly, it was a grenade.
Cool cite! It’s like a bad joke:
“Next, he [Jesus] was going through the village again and a running child bumped his shoulder. Becoming bitter, Jesus said to him, ‘You will not complete your journey.’ (2) Immediately, he fell down and died.”
Puts a whole new complexion on, “What Would Jesus Do?”
I don’t know what it symbolized, but I’m pretty sure it was the prototype for this.
Then Howard would be his ***father’s *** (God’s) name. “God” is merely his job description.
I think they made curtains out of all that “swag,” and the sold the rest on eBay.
So would he then be Jesus H Christ Jr?
They blew it all on Malt Liquour & Lottery Tickets.
And then they waved bye-bye as Bosda launched himself down the greased chute to Hell! 
Jesus W. Christ?
Somewhere in the last post is a joke about a “Burning Bush”
BrainGlutton’s post opened the door for posting the whole of this version, which my mom instilled in me early on. Oh what the hell, for the one person who hasn’t heard it:
We three kings of Orient are
Smoking on a rubber cigar
It was loaded, it exploded
POOM!
We two kings of Orient are
Smoking on a rubber cigar
It was loaded, it exploded
POOM!
I one king of Orient are
Smoking on a rubber cigar
It was loaded, it exploded
POOM!
Si-ilent night…
NOW I’m in the Christmas spirit!
They would have had use for the gold and the frankincense, I imagine.
The myrrh, I’m sure, was quietly re-gifted.