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The Magi
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Apr 3, 2023, 4:49 AM
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There was some discussion about the three wise men in a recent post and it caught my attention. I’m always on the lookout for how religions grow and evolve, perhaps as a result of greater learning, or a greater understanding of God, or for any other number of reasons.
And while I’ve known the story of the three wise men since my youth, I’ve never really looked closely at it. I even got to play the part of Joseph in our 1st grade presentation of the story of the Nativity. My 1st grade crush, Dee-Ann R., got to be Mary, but she didn’t even know I existed. She was completely smitten by Billy B. and he didn’t even have a part in the play. I practiced every night for 2 whole weeks to get my most dramatic line right: “But sir, there must be room at the inn!”
Grandma even hand-sewed me a set of brown robes on her old foot-pedal Singer for the performance. Mom might even still have my coat-of-one-color in a box in her attic. Even so, I was awfully envious of the kids who got to be the camels. Human nature I guess.
I started my new investigation into the magi in the Bible. They’re only mentioned in Matthew 2. And I got a shock right off the bat.
“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.”
Not me in brown, but a reasonable facsimile
Taking that passage at face value, a couple of things jump right out. First, there are no kings anywhere to be found in it, despite the crowns worn in the picture above, and in my play. A more accurate translation of magi might be “astrologers,” or even “sorcerers.” Second, there’s no mention of a manger, and third, who knows how many magi actually showed up? Matthew doesn’t say.
This Syriac manuscript says there were 12 magi. Go figure.
So, how did the somewhat vague description of magi from the east by Matthew in say 50ish AD evolve into our modern, detailed view of the three kings at the Nativity? We’ll have to look elsewhere in the Bible to find out, and in a few other places.
In a related post I was lamenting about the lack of information on Jesus’s youth. And as it turns out, there IS more information on Jesus’s youth. It’s just not in the Bible. But we’ll save that for later. For now, we’ll stick to just the magi. We can add some detail to the story by referencing Luke 2.
“4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.”
That kind of caught my attention too, because it says Mary was only pledged, not married, to Joseph. I’m pretty sure in my 1st grade play I was married to Dee-Ann. It’s all explained further in Matthew 1:18, which covers the situation in great detail from Joseph’s side, less so from Mary’s. But that too is for another day. What’s important for us and the magi is that Luke 2 is where the sheep and manger come into the story.
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.
Although Dee-Ann and I never found room at the inn, Jesus must have. Because in Matthew 2 we also have this: 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
So it appears our modern view of this:
Is a conflation of two stories. One story from Matthew, where the magi visit Jerusalem, speak to Herod, and are sent to a house, and the story from Luke, where shepherds visit a manger to see the baby Jesus. If you’re gonna mix stories, I guess magi appearing at a manger with shepherds makes more sense than shepherds appearing in a house with magi.
Get those animals out of this house!
Despite Nativity scenes all over the world mixing the stories, there’s also the possibility that the two visits were years apart. Matthew 2:15 lays out the Massacre of the Innocents:
16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi.
It’s pretty easy to distinguish a 2-year old from a babe in swaddling clothing, so it’s possible that the magi visit occurred up to two years after Jesus’s birth, based on Matthew 2:16 and Herod’s hunt for toddlers.
Tradition has even given us the names of the three magi, even though we can’t be sure there were three: Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar. There’s another interesting side-story as to how they all came “from the east” originally, but by the Middle Ages came from the East, West, and South, to represent Christ’s calling to a more worldly populous. It’s a great example of ancient political correctness; all the world’s population had to be represented by the magi, not just those from the East.
The early, pretty white three magi
The later, multi-cultural call of Christianity
There’s a lot more interesting stuff in the magi story to be investigated at a later date. Like how they became crown-wearing kings. And why, as magi (the term itself refers to Zoroastrian priests) they would listen to Yahweh, and not their own god Ahura Mazda. There’s the nature and implications of their gifts; and if they really were all Persian, or multi-cultural? And a whole bunch of other great stuff.
Hey wise guys, I’M your god, not Yahweh. That star in the west is a trick by the evil Ahriman. Don’t believe in that false god and his evil lies!
This is from a modern Zoroastrian chat board. Can you believe such a thing even exists? What a time we live in. It highlights the two closely related, but different views of god, and of sin, between Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
Question: Can a Christian also be a Zoroastrian?
Answer: A Zoroastrian cannot believe in an omnipotent God or an omniscient God because we believe God is all good (if he was truly omnipotent he would be good and evil) and that free will is real. An omnipotent and omniscient God nullifies those two. A Zoroastrian also cannot believe Jesus died for our sins, since our sins constantly feed Ahriman (the evil force), and Ahura Mazda (the good god) is not omnipotent. To a Zoroastrian our thoughts, words and actions are part of a long battle between good and evil. They (and the eternal struggle between good and evil) cannot be erased by a single act of sacrifice.
Thus to answer your question, yes a Zoroastrian can believe in Jesus as a man who guided folks towards goodness, but a Zoroastrian cannot be a Christian. The latter requires a belief in an omnipotent and omniscient God as well as the divinity and eternal sacrifice of Christ for humanity.
Clear enough. Time constraints prevent me from getting into all that other cool stuff now. But luckily, we’ve got the bones of the magi in Cologne, Germany. I wonder if a DNA test would yield single, or multiple races? That, and other mysteries of the magi, will have to wait till next time.
The Shrine of the Magi, Colone Cathedral
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Orange Blooded [2156]
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Re: The Magi
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Apr 3, 2023, 7:45 AM
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"So, how did the somewhat vague description of magi from the east by Matthew in say 50ish AD evolve into our modern, detailed view of the three kings at the Nativity? We’ll have to look elsewhere in the Bible to find out, and in a few other places."
That's a generous date for the composition of Matthew.
"In a related post I was lamenting about the lack of information on Jesus’s youth. And as it turns out, there IS more information on Jesus’s youth. It’s just not in the Bible. But we’ll save that for later."
Looking forward to your posts on the other gospels. Apparently Jesus killed a kid for knocking over a pool he created. This is mentioned in several different writings, one believed to come from as early as the second century.
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Interesting. One could have walked into most
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Apr 3, 2023, 9:17 AM
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churches, certainly the one I attend, which was a somewhat random choice, and asked these questions, and received the following answers:
- Who were the magi? (Not sure. Astronomers, maybe?)
- How many were there? (No way to know.)
- Why three in the scene? (Probably the three mentioned gifts.)
- When did they visit Jesus? (Dont know. Some time after the birth.)
- Why are they in the traditional scene? (Dont know. Probably because they are part of the general story?)
You would also find discussion about why Mary is even there. Women didnt have to make that trip, so why would a nine month pregnant woman attempt an unnecessary 5 day walk? Well, when you think about it, the story does start out kind of dicey, a before-the-wedding pregnancy and all that. We also know that later, as an adult, he was mocked by the townspeople. So, some tongue wagging going on. What is likely is that she didn't want to be left alone in a village of whispers and sideways glances. "If you're going, I'm going." So, while the traditional manger scene is viewed joyfully - which was the message to the shepherds - inside the barn it may have been more like, "What do we do now, Joseph?" They had been told what was happening, but instructions on handling the blowback had been few. She could handle it, which may have been why she was chosen.
Anyway, all that in one conversation, 20 minutes tops, or in last Christmas's sermon, about the same 20 minutes. None of this is considered dogma, grade school plays notwithstanding. What might instead be worthy of research is why they were called wise, and what is the sign they looked for. Is that just a made up part of the story, or was something going on there? Is there any way to develop at least a decent guess? If we're going to look beyond an obvious reenactment to the underlying events, those questions seem to be worth more look than they have been traditionally given.
Message was edited by: CUintulsa®
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All-In [29874]
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Re: Interesting. One could have walked into most
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Apr 3, 2023, 11:43 AM
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All good points. The Romans themselves say there was a census in 6 AD I believe, so that’s a time marker that can be corroborated outside the Bible. A survey of any documented celestial sightings about that time from the Middle East, or even China, would be interesting…say a comet, or meteor. I find it interesting that visitors from the East are even in the story at all. They just seem like such an outlier. They appear, drop off gifts, then leave and go back to their own lives. And religions, for that matter. We’ve just travelled 1000 miles on camels to see the King of Kings, so let’s go back home and worship Ahura Mazda? The Egyptians knew astrology, were a whole lot closer, and no one from there bothered to come over for a peek? Why only Persia?And all the while, people from Jesus’s own land are oblivious, or their reactions are unusually muted, about the whole event. There’s no descriptions of the people of Jerusalem crowding the house to see what is under this star. If it was bright enough to see from Persia it must have been like a lighthouse above Jerusalem. Even with the threat of Herod one might expect a few crowds to see what was bringing people from so far away, Only a few shepherds and some foreigners got the memo, or saw the light? And then everything goes back to normal until Jesus takes up his ministry almost three decades later. Definitely worth a closer look.
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Re: Interesting. One could have walked into most
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Apr 3, 2023, 12:33 PM
[ in reply to Interesting. One could have walked into most ] |
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And yes, I think your question about "wise" is a very interesting one. All of Judaism (or actually, Yahwism at this point) has been about admonishing soothsayers, sorcerers, and astrologers. And suddenly a group of astrologers, from another land, and another religion, are considered "wise?" That's very unusual.
It makes one wonder who this part of the story is even for. No potential Jewish convert is going to be impressed by a sorcerer vouching for Jesus, lol. "Well, I didn't believe this guy was the Messiah at first, but now that I've learned that a group of heathen magicians that Yahweh warned us against say he is, I'm IN!"
But a potential Persian convert who's "Christianity Curious," might be very impressed that his folk see who this child really is.
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All fun questions. You being the researcher and communicator
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Apr 3, 2023, 2:16 PM
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that you are, I hope to set you onto that trail. The text doesn't give us enough info to arrive at a known answer, but it seems to me that we could arrive at some proposals in the 50%+ range.
For instance, one can eliminate some things for the reasons you mention:
- Not much to be gained in including the story, and it raises questions, which argues against complete fabrication. If 'Matthew' is part of a conspiracy, including the Magi was a huge mistake. This simply means the writer thought the Magi visited, but it does mean that.
- Maybe was not a bright, generally noticeable event.
- These were not people on an eastern religious pilgrimage: nothing would lead them there.
One possibility - just me talking, haven't researched this - but if they were familiar with the OT documents, they had what they needed to arrive at that place and time. But why look for a 'star'? If an astronomical thing, it would guide them in direction only, and would likely but not necessarily be small, like the recent comet. It it guided in direction only, Jerusalem would be a logical place, so they would go there. But if that is the case, why did they have to ask where Jesus was: it was Herod's people who figured it out from the Micah. Of course, just because the Magi figured out some of it doesn't mean they deciphered all of it, so maybe they had to stop at the Jerusalem Quik Trip and ask for local directions.
Some people have said over the years that Matthew 2 and Luke 2 contradict each other, but it seems one has to have that bias to propose that. When I look at them side by side, the plain reading seems to simply be two different accounts by two different sources written for two different reasons. So, we're back to who these Magi were, and what caused them to go to Jerusalem. If I had to check a box today, I'd say they were familiar with some of the OT, doped out what was about to happen, saw a comet or something in that direction, and went to Jerusalem and started asking questions.
Message was edited by: CUintulsa®
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Re: All fun questions. You being the researcher and communicator
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Apr 3, 2023, 5:15 PM
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Yes I agree that it seemingly adds very little to the overall story. That would tend to make me believe that some version of it did happen, in some capacity. There is certainly nothing controversial about people walking a long way to see something unusual, so that passes my “why wouldn’t it be true” threshold. It is interesting too that it’s only found in Matthew, which might indicate that the other gospels just didn’t give it enough value to even include it. It’s a mystery for sure.
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Most portrayals the "wise men" are based on traditions
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Apr 3, 2023, 1:12 PM
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and not necessarily the Scripture. We don't know that there were only three...it only mentions three gifts. We don't know how old Jesus was when they visited. We do know that they didn't come to the manger scene, so it was not the same day/night as His birth. I think the Scripture you gave about Herod's response is evidence that at least He wasn't a newborn, but we don't know. Note that in Matthew 2:7, Herod specifically asks when the star appeared. If the star was new on the night of Jesus's birth, then that lends credence to a Jesus of up to two years old, as it would have potentially taken a long time for these guys to make a journey "from the east", and Herod may have based his command on this. "Kings" is just from the song, I think. Nowhere in the Bible does it imply that they were royal.
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Legend [17918]
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Think to the time of Daniel.
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Apr 3, 2023, 8:31 PM
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and the position he held. How people from the "East" might know about prophesies concerning the "King of Israel." They were taught these things...
Message was edited by: HuntClub®
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Re: Think to the time of Daniel.
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Apr 3, 2023, 9:12 PM
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Excellent point!
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Re: The Magi
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Apr 4, 2023, 7:12 AM
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"if they were familiar with the OT documents, they had what they needed to arrive at that place and time."
Honest question...where in the Old Testament does it point to that specific place and time?
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Re: The Magi
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Apr 4, 2023, 7:51 AM
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A place... time was not given
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.”
The New King James Version. (1982). (Mic 5:2). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
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Re: The Magi
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Apr 4, 2023, 11:05 AM
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I knew Bethlehem was mentioned but didn’t think that the timing was.
Lee stretched the truth a little bit there.
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Daniel 9 tells when.***
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Apr 4, 2023, 3:14 PM
[ in reply to Re: The Magi ] |
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Re: The Magi
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Apr 5, 2023, 5:54 PM
[ in reply to Re: The Magi ] |
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Micah and Daniel are both considered prophesies about Christ's time and place, but they are also of course considered prophesies by the Jews, and probably the Muslims as well.
It's the problem of having multiple religions tied at the hip. Both are looking for messiahs, but the messiahs are different. And therefore, nearly every prophecy about a "leader," or "anointed one," or "holy one," short of very explicit details, can be interpreted either way.
I was speaking earlier about prophecy in general and the inherent difficulty in deciphering it. If the prophecy says "A man from Galilee will walk the earth in 500 years and his name will be Jesus and he will die by crucifixion and rise from the dead in three days" or "A Jew will lead Israel in a great revolt against Rome in 300 years and his name will Simon Bar Kokhbar and he will die in that rebellion" are real clear, real explicit, prophecies.
But how does one interpret "In the future, a leader will rule men." Gee. Where to start? Is this a political leader or a spiritual leader? Is he ruling men's lives or their souls? Is the future tomorrow, or 1000 years from now? It's just impossible to tell. Context helps, but all one will end up with is probability. It might be this guy or there's a chance it's that guy.
Micah and Daniel are like that. A lot of cryptic prophecy that can be equally well interpreted by Jews or Christians. It is interesting though that there seems to be awful lot of prophecy about men coming and leading, but almost none about how all the rules will change. Maybe it's out there, but how many verses talk about "Soon, all which you have abided by for 2000 years will be null and void," or "A new covenant is coming, so prepare yourself for the change."
Maybe it's just God just playing a joke. After all, both Jews and Christians do both worship the same God at the end of the day. I mean, if the Trinity is correct, Jews worship Jesus without even realizing it since Jesus IS God. And they have since day one. One can't very well worship one without worshipping the other if they are the same. And if the Trinity is not correct, Christians still worship God because even without Jesus, God is still God.
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Daniel says a bit more than that. One chapter alone has more
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Apr 5, 2023, 8:51 PM
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specificity than I would pass off with gee, where to start. Granted, any single OT prophecy could perhaps have that said about it: we can assume more than one person was born in Bethlehem. That is why there are so many prophecies. They do stack up, dont they? Anyone today is free to conclude what one likes, but the odds of coincidence with Jesus get ridiculously small.
It is not enough to say, "Muslims and Jews think it says something else". It is a given that they do. Nevertheless, if the prophecies do not name Jesus as the Messiah, against almost zero odds of an alternative, the case has therefore been made by working in the other direction: we started at Jesus and made the OT fit the person. Is one willing to stand on that proposal? If that process has been applied to Jesus, surely it can be done for one of the couple hundred billion other possibilities, and fairly easily. I would think doing so would be a holy grail of NT skeptics. There is a Nobel prize there for somebody, I would think. Or not.
Message was edited by: CUintulsa®
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Re: Daniel says a bit more than that. One chapter alone has more
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Apr 6, 2023, 12:08 AM
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Good points on multiple fronts. And worth a closer look. A good start point would be a cumulative list of OT messiah prophecies viewed from Jewish, Christian, and even Muslim perspectives, since they all worship the same God.
>"Nevertheless, if the prophecies do not name Jesus as the Messiah, against almost zero odds of an alternative, the case has therefore been made by working in the other direction: we started at Jesus and made the OT fit the person."
It could be more complex than that. For instance, the Jews wouldn't need all the OT prophecies to point to one messiah. We know for a fact they considered Cyrus to be one, and Bar Kokhbar to be a second one. Looking through that lens, Micah, which was written after the Assyrian invasion in 722 BCE, could be interpreted as a call for a messiah to save them from oppression at that point in time, and only at that point, since further history had not occurred. For them, Cyrus ultimately fulfilled that prophecy by way of his destruction of Babylon.
Daniel, written later, either during or after the Babylonian Exile, could be a second, later call for a messiah to save Israel from Antiochus IV, or even Rome, which Bar Kokhbar briefly did. So Jewish prophesies only needed to occur during limited time periods, not all of history, and they were fulfilled sequentially by multiple people.
Christianity presumably proposes that all the OT prophesies point to Jesus. And Islam, coming after Christianity, presumably proposes both OT and NT prophesies point to whomever.
But there is another option still. Biblical prophecy could be a hybrid. Some prophecies could point to Jewish messiahs, some could point to Christ, and some could point to Mohammad or another Muslim prophet or leader. There’s nothing that says anyone in history has cornered the market on all Biblical prophecy. Cyrus can fulfill Jewish prophecy and Jesus can fulfill Christian prophesy at the same time. They both can be true.
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Re: Daniel says a bit more than that. One chapter alone has more
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Apr 6, 2023, 1:15 AM
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This dual answer could even take different forms. It could be a split decision. The Micah prophecy might be about Cyrus and the Daniel prophecy might be true about Jesus.
OR
There's even a 4th option. The Micah and Daniel prophecies could have both been true for the Jews up to the point they were fulfilled for Judaism, and then both be true AGAIN when they were fulfilled by Jesus, sort of "two-use" prophesies. The only limits on their interpretation are the limits we impose on them. God presumably has no limits in how he might choose to communicate with us, if he exists.
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Sure, agree, as a possibility God can communicate
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Apr 6, 2023, 3:31 AM
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however he chooses, and many apologists and skeptics do shoehorn God into their bias by speaking for him. But that does not make all proposals for his communication possible. I think all of us have heard some version of, "God wants me to be happy, and I have prayed about this, so ...". Some strange things follow, including, "... my wife no longer loves me, Krystyl really understands me, it is not good for kids to be raised in a home where parents fight, so Krystle and I ..." God told him that. Alrighty.
Sorry, just threw that in for no reason. There's always a Krystyl.
Anyway, Micah might be about Cryus. Except he said we need someone born in Bethlehem. I'm sure you know that, so I likely misunderstood. But sure, those prophecies could be about someone before Jesus, then were later about Jesus. Two things would then become true:
1. We can identify without much speculation or inconsistency who the first ones are.
2. They are about Jesus as of now.
Would this not make the chances of either the OT or the NT being of human origin very small?
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Re: Sure, agree, as a possibility God can communicate
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Apr 6, 2023, 12:48 PM
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>There's always a Krystyl.
True. Though in my brother’s case it was Crystal. It reminds me of an old Sam Kinison act where at some point in his routine he’d single out a guy in the audience and say “I know a girl f’d you up. One always does. WHO was she!? TELL US HER NAME!!!! to the raucous roar of the crowd.
>Anyway, Micah might be about Cryus. Except he said we need someone born in Bethlehem.
This shows the problem of prophecy even in ancient times. Some Jews thought this, some thought that. The Jews have never been a homogenous block. In fact, they’ve even hated each other for most of their existence. For example, Samaritans. But some faction of them looked at Micah 5:2 and said “They’ve got to be talking about Cyrus.” And some opposing faction probably said “Yeah, but what about the Bethlehem part?” To which the first group replied “Right, it says ‘out’ of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel’, and Cyrus walked right ‘out’ of Bethlehem on his way to Jerusalem just as scripture said he would. To which the first group would shake their head and groan in disbelief.
But I chose Cyrus as an example because it’s a case where he is explicitly called a messiah in the text. Which shows some, but not necessarily everyone, though that. Interpretation was tough then, too.
>Two things would then become true:
>1. We can identify without much speculation or inconsistency who the first ones are.
>2. They are about Jesus as of now.
>Would this not make the chances of either the OT or the NT being of human origin very small?
I think I see what you are getting at. Essentially, if any prophecy is true, then there must be divine guidance behind it?
I don’t know if I would make that jump necessarily. Since humans wrote the prophecy, there is by default a human element to it. I guess the question then becomes “was that human element divinely inspired?”
That I just can’t say. And the problem is only compounded by the fact that the lack of explicitness always leaves wiggle room. Like saying Cyrus walked 'out' of Bethlehem. If the scripture was more explicit and said "born in Bethlehem', that would take Cyrus out of the mix, neatly and cleanly.
So I think the two issues are 1) Does one EVER really know if any vague prophecy is truly fulfilled, and 2) if one thinks it was, was it by luck, or by divine insight? As to that, only the prophet could tell us if God spoke to him, or how. Back to faith, again.
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I mean no disrespect to Crystals everywhere, or those who
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Apr 6, 2023, 1:20 PM
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fall in love with them. Or any Brittanies, or Kaylees. We had our Bunnys and Pookies.
I see your points. Nevertheless, when one stacks 50 or so of them, coming from various times and places, but all from the same culture who is looking for the same person, then all 50 become embodied in one and only one person, all the ifs and buts about any particular one of those prophecies becomes moot. What somebody thought about it at some earlier time becomes irrelevant. This is the guy. There is no reasonable alternative. None is even proposed, that I know of.
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All-In [29874]
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Re: I mean no disrespect to Crystals everywhere, or those who
Apr 6, 2023, 2:20 PM
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> who is looking for the same person,
I think this is the rub. I talk about it more in my other follow up post. So many posts I'm getting lost now.  "> That's a good thing. I wish others would hop in.
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Re: I mean no disrespect to Crystals everywhere, or those who
Apr 6, 2023, 2:22 PM
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>What somebody thought about it at some earlier time becomes irrelevant.
Sure, I can see that. If I thought every prophecy in the Bible was pointing to Jesus, I'd still be a Christian myself. I'm fully in your court on that one.
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Orange Blooded [2156]
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I probably didnt word my proposal clearly:
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Apr 6, 2023, 3:06 AM
[ in reply to Re: Daniel says a bit more than that. One chapter alone has more ] |
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There is not, to my knowledge, any OT messianic prophecy that has to be excluded to make the case that they in total identify Jesus. The statistical probability that Jesus accidentally came along and fits them all is basically zero. Therefore, if one says the prophecies do not identify Jesus, one is necessarily saying Christians work backwards, starting with Jesus and making him fit the prophecies. My proposal was that if this was the case, one should be able to find many more by that method. I know of no such person.
Start with the prophecies, and one ends up in Bethlehem at that time period, then one ends up up with one person from Bethlehem who was from David, was crucified, had his clothes divided up by casting lots, etc.
Of course the rule of Cyrus was foretold. He was referred to as a messiah (if my memory is correct, it was 'anointed one') due to his role in freeing Israel from Babylon. We do indeed know that for a fact. But that is a long way from saying he could be considered to be the object of the promises of the Messiah. Cyrus would have a hard time even fulfilling the 'line of David' part, not being Jewish. I cant imagine he was at that time considered to be that person: certainly no one does today. So, what people thought of this or that person is not relevant, it seems to me. That is not how truth is arrived at. Instead, we are left with the body of prophecies pointing to Jesus and no one else.
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Re: I probably didnt word my proposal clearly:
Apr 6, 2023, 2:17 PM
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Very well presented. I'll try to address it all. I hate that all our best discussions get buried 30 posts deep where no one ever see them, lol. I may do a Micah and Daniel dedicated OP just so more people can see and join into our discussion.
>The statistical probability that Jesus accidentally came along and fits them all is basically zero.
There do seem to be quite a few prophecies. Hundreds perhaps, depending on whom one asks. My question would be the "quality" or specificity of each of those prophesies. I haven't looked at each one closely to know, but prophecies like "a leader will rise" would be virtually meaningless in my opinion, while something like "cast lots for his clothes" would be much more compelling. So the quantity, to me, is not really relevant without knowing the quality of them also. 100 pieces of ore are worthless, but those one or two gold nuggets is where one gets the real value from the prophecy, imo.
>Of course the rule of Cyrus was foretold.
I wouldn't even say that for certain, really. It is a fact he freed them from Babylon, but I don't know if his prediction is a fact. I used Cyrus as an example because the Jews thought his rule was true enough prophecy that they put it in their own scripture. I think it's highly likely it was him in the prophecy, and I can't think of another candidate for that particular case in history, but I personally wouldn't consider it a certainty without more explicitness. I always wonder "why be vague when one can just as easily be specific?" If one is predicting Cyrus, then say Cyrus. What use or value do ambiguity and confusion have?
>But that is a long way from saying he could be considered to be the object of the promises of the Messiah.
Oh certainly. Apples and oranges. My point in including two examples of Jewish messiahs was that the Jewish messiahs weren't even expected to be divine. They were literally "the hero of the moment", or "the guy who is gonna get us out of this most recent pickle we find ourselves in." Translating that term 'messiah' to a personage having eternal impact and implications took Christian theology.
>Instead, we are left with the body of prophecies pointing to Jesus and no one else.
Yes, I would tentatively agree, with conditions. IF one looks at all those prophecies as pointing to ONE person, Jesus would be the only candidate I can think of. But the catch is that the Jews didn't document, or expect, all those prophecies to point to one person. They were different prophecies, made at different times, anticipating different people to fulfill them.
And at the time they were written, there was no Old Testament. All the books that became the OT were loose floating flyers in this or that library, scattered over who knows where. I imagine no one would have even considered they would all be gathered together someday and treated as a whole. Each was a document of its own time and place. Collecting them into a unified package probably didn't happen till during or after the Exile, when the Jews worried they might be lost forever.
Within that context, a consistent thread of the prediction of Christ woven through the OT would require clues and kernels of prophecy being left all through books that were never even planned to be assembled, with no guarantee they would be included in the final product, over 2000 years, by hundreds of different writers writing in their own times, and none of them realizing they were predicting something they wouldn't believe in. Not to say that didn't happen, but rather that's how it would have had to have happened, if the current understanding of how the OT was created is correct.
In my mind that would be more compelling evidence for God than even the individual prophesies or the number of prophesies themselves. It would be the rough equivalent of dumping a puzzle on the table, of hundreds of random pieces, and they all land in place, assembled into a coherent picture. Or dumping a bag of scrabble tiles on the floor and they all land in one coherent sentence. That would be awesome, frankly. But it does of course take faith to believe it happened that way.
I'll throw a piece up on Micah to put that one minor piece of the puzzle into some contemporary context. Daniel is a tougher road because it's longer and all the vision stuff, so it might take longer.
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Oculus Spirit [93678]
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I think you have too much respect for what Jews of...
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Apr 6, 2023, 6:25 AM
[ in reply to Re: The Magi ] |
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today think about the OT. My Bible says they are blinded and bound in disbelief. Imo, they are piszed at Jesus for rising from the grave after they went to all that trouble having Him crucified. He turned their religion upside down, inside out and in their opinions usurped the power they had over God's Holy Temple.
The Gospel was preached by Paul and the other Apostles in the synagogues all around the Roman Lake and throughout the empire. That reduced the paychecks of the Pharisees and everyone else who made merchandise of the House of God. The argument had nothing to do with truth, follow the money.
My Lord is a Jew so Jews are wayward brothers to me.
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Re: I think you have too much respect for what Jews of...
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Apr 6, 2023, 10:42 AM
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Lol you crack me up sometimes 88. I do love your passion.
>I think you have too much respect...
Well, I do try. I think that people believe what they believe. It's just too much effort to lie to one's self all the time.
> they are piszed at Jesus for rising from the grave after they went to all that trouble having Him crucified.
I'd probably be, if I was one of the ones in on the scheme in 30ish AD. But I don't think any of the others have a reason to be pixxed. They weren't responsible.
>He turned their religion upside down
That's a fact
>That reduced the paychecks of the Pharisees
Yes, but the Jews were never interested in expansion to the level Paul took Christianity. In fact, Peter fought to keep the new religion more exclusive and restrictive, if you'll remember the Antioch debate about how to handle gentiles.
>follow the money
Always. But that criticism can be turned on any religion, from Jerusalem to Mecca to the Vatican to any modern Megachurch. I wouldn't say the Jews have a lock on the possibility of corruption or grift.
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Oculus Spirit [93678]
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True:"
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Apr 6, 2023, 7:24 PM
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"Yes, but the Jews were never interested in expansion to the level Paul took Christianity. In fact, Peter fought to keep the new religion more exclusive and restrictive, if you'll remember the Antioch debate about how to handle gentiles."
Hebrews never reached out to other peoples because God was abhorred with all mankind who were not the Children of Abraham. Nevertheless, many others came to worship God because, and when, they saw the prosperity of the Hebrews in times when Hebrews obeyed God.
Christians of the first church(es) were instructed by God to preach the Gospel unto everyone. Had they not been then God's promises to Abraham, David and other OT fathers would have gone unfilled. 'In thy seed will I bless all nations.'
Yep, I'm not one for the huge churches. The concept of church is fellowship and brotherly love above all. It's to support one another through thick and thin, in the good and the bad times, to encourage, reprove and correct one another as a compass to one another. Worship isn't the only purpose for church. Worship is down on the priority list, to me.
Worship of God is a way of life, not an event which occurs twice on Sunday and Wed evenings. Preaching the Gospel is doing good but if a man only shares the Truth of the Gospel during those few hours of church services it's because he isn't really walking with God.
I know this is harsh and I'm aware it's against all organized religions but it's the truth as has been known by those who led by God. I do not discourage anyone from attending church. It is a vital part of the life of a God fearing man. I urge everyone to read the Bible daily asking God to open them to IT as He opens IT to them.
Think about Gentle on My Mind, the Glen Campbell song. Let God be on your minds as was the woman to whom the song was dedicated. She was always there in his mind and in his heart. Let that be your condition. Go about with the mind of Christ.
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More truth in that than we allow ourselves to say.
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Apr 6, 2023, 1:43 PM
[ in reply to I think you have too much respect for what Jews of... ] |
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Culturally, it is open season on the NT. Which is fine: the NT can handle it: it took a blameless Jesus three years to get executed, and I doubt it would take that long today. However, the thoughts of Muslims are almost always treated with deference - in spite of no defensible origin and a very oppressive ideology - and modern Jews are seen as the keepers of a true flame, which is no more true today than it was of the Sanhedrin. But few ever say that.
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Re: More truth in that than we allow ourselves to say.
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Apr 6, 2023, 2:44 PM
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>Culturally, it is open season on the NT.
I can see that. I think it's hard for a lot of people to separate religion from the bad apples. Sometimes there are more bad apples than others, but the overriding message of Christianity is love, and that's pretty simple. I know there were plenty of bad apples in history, from many religions, that didn't follow that message, but history aside, denominations aside, all the other accoutrements and baggage aside, just do unto others. Every religion I can think of preaches that in some capacity, yet people never can seem to get it right.
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The surest way to improve one's stature today is to voice
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Apr 6, 2023, 4:29 PM
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anything from skepticism to outright hate for Jesus, Christianity and Christians. Some sitting politicians blame Christians for any issue they want. Mentions of this bigotry draw a hand wave. That, however, has led us to this: When a Christian school was recently targeted in a shooting, mainstream media commentators openly blamed Christianity and the fact that the school was Christian. That's right: The school and Christians were blamed and made fun of by the mainstream for the murder visited upon them. (Links upon request.)
A couple of years ago, on another tnet board, I said that this cultural shift was occurring, and that the history of what happens when the scapegoating of a subset becomes culturally acceptable is not good at all. That comment received the expected derision. Here we are. It will get worse.
"The right side of history" in this will not be the pleasant side or the winning side. I think you know why this is so. And you know it is the only eternally viable side, unpleasant now, but Home eternally. "Is it hard to kick against the goads?" We will always welcome another brother in what is to come.
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Orange Blooded [2156]
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Re: The surest way to improve one's stature today is to voice
Apr 6, 2023, 4:50 PM
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"The surest way to improve one's stature today is to voice anything from skepticism to outright hate for Jesus, Christianity and Christians."
And yet somehow a man with no prior experience in politics became President of the United States pretending to be an evangelical christian.
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Re: The surest way to improve one's stature today is to voice
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Apr 6, 2023, 5:29 PM
[ in reply to The surest way to improve one's stature today is to voice ] |
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>that the history of what happens when the scapegoating of a subset becomes culturally acceptable is not good at all.
How many examples do we have in history of that? People don't always have to agree with each other, but as a minimum we should always at least respect each other. That message seems to have fallen through the cracks along the way.
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Oculus Spirit [93678]
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"Politics is the debil, Bobby" - Mama Boucher***
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Apr 6, 2023, 7:29 PM
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How many do you want, and what do you think happened to them
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Apr 6, 2023, 7:42 PM
[ in reply to Re: The surest way to improve one's stature today is to voice ] |
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Knowing your informed and open minded take on things, I wouldn't think you are shutting your eyes to what has happened before and what is happening now. Individually and societally, the practice has a long history. But we can delve into that if you like. In the current sense, we are the frog in boiling water: that a Christian school would be blamed, because it is Christian, for murder of kids on its campus would be unthinkable even 10 years ago. We would assume we are above such accusations as that. Now it happens, and someone like me has to point it out, only to get dismissed. The vector of this is very pronounced, but because the change in any one week is small, we don't want to admit it of ourselves. But it just now did happen.
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Oculus Spirit [93678]
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Hey, we're supposed to be persecuted.
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Apr 6, 2023, 8:37 PM
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I'm not being persecuted. People said it was persecution when grocery stores started selling beer. They wouldn't shop in a store where beer was sold. When the grocery stores started selling beer the Christians who worked in them were confused and felt persecuted in the conflict of whether to work where beer was sold or find another job.
I've seen our basic culture change since the 1950. 60 years of Christians crying about secular people persecuting them. Yet, not one of us has been fed to a lion, not one was hanged for our beliefs. That happens all across the middle east and in Asia but hasn't on this continent in hundreds of years. I'm not sure it ever happened here.
We were promised to be persecuted for our belief(s). We have a dilemma, is the Bible lying or are we failing to spread the Gospel? When I get past that I'll turn to the subject of persecution of Christians in America. I think the biggest problems with our churches is that we aren't persecuted. A healthy bit of persecution would be to our churches like a dose of exlax to the body, it would take out all the diaper waste.
We can't fix this nation, it was irredeemable when it was born and we can't fix this world, both were doomed when Eve took ate of the forbidden fruit.
I expect no respect from the media and am never disappointed for I don't put any faith in man.
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Hall of Famer [24477]
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Agree. Back when the Lounge had all these conversations,
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Apr 6, 2023, 10:43 PM
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some people used the word 'persecution' to describe the growing animosity toward Christians, and they got a lot of backlash for it. Well, that sort of depends on what means by persecution, and I think you are right that mere antipathy, which we have been experiencing for a while, wouldn't be considered as such by you or me. The growing hate toward Christians is perhaps a canary in the mine, but it is not persecution. If you want to be liked, join a fraternity.
I think it was Rowan Williams who said, when asked about what it is like holding a position like his, "Wherever Paul went, there were either revivals or riots. Wherever I go, they serve me tea." A very honest self assessment, one that rightfully accuses me as well as him. A large subject, that.
However, the reaction to the Nashville school shooting was a step over the line into persecution, imo. We have actual dead people. Granted, the killer is but one person, perhaps a mentally ill one, but the resulting message to any susceptible person was that it was acceptable, if illegal. I will agree that some people might put the 'persecution' line a bit further on, but that was over the line imo. The importance of this is not that it happened (the reaction to the event), but that this is the latest signpost that went by our fast moving train. We hadn't seen that sign before. Didn't even know it was close. We blew right by it.
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All-In [29874]
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Re: How many do you want, and what do you think happened to them
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Apr 6, 2023, 11:21 PM
[ in reply to How many do you want, and what do you think happened to them ] |
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>How many examples do we have in history of that?
Yeah, that was me being facetious. The history of man is the history of persecution, 24/7/365. It's easier to try and think of occasions where it HASN't happened in history.
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Hall of Famer [24477]
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I apologize for misreading that. Should have known,
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Apr 7, 2023, 2:49 AM
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knowing you.
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Oculus Spirit [93678]
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Very well said. We are "sojourners on the earth",
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Apr 6, 2023, 7:40 PM
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"strangers in a strange land." The NT adds the word "ambassador", which is a very tough role to understand, harder to fill. "He is making his appeal through us", and at the same time an ambassador has to remember to not identify with the natives. When he gets home, "how many friends did you make" might not be a relevant question, depending upon the times of the assignment. Ambassadors who forget to build bonds are inefficient: those who adopt the perspectives of the natives are destructive to their homeland.
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