When they saw baby Jesus they fell upon their knees and opened up their treasures.
They gave to Jesus those three treasures.
They helped Joseph take his wife and son through territory.
Because they were given gold and treasure.
Not to mention…being in possession of all three valuables at the time meant you had pull…and a lot of it…
The very mention of baby Jesus with possession of treasures would spark protection among believers...and help hide and raise such a child....
Your talking about baby Jesus…There’s no wonder those treasures were brought to him. Incense for burning in the temple…Perfume for smelling good…and gold to bargain with for services…perfect.
The gifts were symbolic, of course. Gold symbolized royalty, frankincense symbolized holiness/religion, and myrrh symbolized death and the tomb. In other words, the magi already knew about the crucifixion, or were divinely inspired to give a gift that foreshadowed it. Presumably we are supposed to understand that there was not so much gold, etc., as to change the way of life of Jesus and his family.
Czarcasm, the story of the magi and their gifts is in Matthew, where Joseph and Mary already live in Bethlehem. The manger is part of the radically different birth story in Luke.
And Balder and others. But those are all merely gods. What is shocking about Jesus is that it’s the story of how the God died. (Please note that it is not necessary to believe that monotheism is factually true to observe that this is an unusual claim among monotheists.)
Are we sure it wasn’t scribal errors, and they were actually bringing names for a possible future shiddach (marriage match) – Golda, Myrtle, and the infant daughter of Baron Frankenstein?
Read Frasier’s “The Golden Bough.” It will take you a while. :rolleyes: In it Christianity is explicitly compared with the story of Osiris.
A lot of other traditions are traced to their roots as well. The book (or several volume set, depending) is amusing and sometimes disturbing :eek:, if you can persevere through the variations on a theme of tracing how some traditions have evolved in different places.