LET'S GET IT RIGHT ABOUT THE MAGI |
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Many assume that there were exactly three. Many assume that they saw the infant Jesus in the Bethlehem manger. Some assume that instead they saw Him in Jerusalem within a month or so of His birth. Some assume that He was closer to two years old at the time. Obviously all of these cannot be correct. But are any of them? First, there is nothing anywhere that specifies the number of the wise men. There are three gifts mentioned: gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:11), but that says absolutely nothing about the number of gift-givers. If a beggar ended up with all nickels, dimes, and quarters after a day of begging, does that mean he got "donations" from only three people? Or that each person gave him only one type of coin? Of course not! So why must we assume that because only three kinds of gifts were specified, there were only three givers and each presented Him with only one gift? Nobody can prove any specific number, but being "men" there had to be at least two. There could just as easily have been three, seven, twelve, twenty, forty, or a hundred! Three is but an assumption, and quite probably an erroneous one at that considering another piece of information provided in this account. There is an indication that this company was decidedly greater than three, possible including an entourage of several hundreds if not thousands of people. Jerusalem was a large city, a center of commerce sitting at a major crossroads between Europe, Africa, and the Near East. Verse 3 records that these men caused quite a disturbance not only to Herod but to the entire city. Three men on camels, or even thirty, would not even be noticed, much less be a cause for alarm. However, if the wise men numbered in the dozens and/or their accompanying armies comprised a couple thousand, a stir of concern around this metropolis becomes much more understandable. The remaining assumptions actually need to be explained together and the explanation is as difficult as the previous one was easy. The scriptures must be consulted closely and very carefully in order to arrive at the correct conclusion. Several steps must be taken before the picture becomes clear, and several questions must be answered before the final answers are obtained. First we must ask just when was Jesus born? How can we prove it? The key here lies in two verses -- one with more obvious significance than the other, and both in the first chapter of Luke. Verse 36 is a very plain statement of the difference in ages between John the Baptist and Jesus. We have an explicit verification of a six-month age separation. Since there are no direct indications as to the date of Jesus' conception and birth, can John's be pinpointed at all? The answer is yes! And the key to it hides in what would seem to be a short, meaningless five-word phrase back in verse 5. Here it states that John's father, Zacharias, was "of the course of Abia." So what? What can that have to do with anything? A great deal!!! Because in verses 23-24 we find that Elizabeth became pregnant with John "as soon as the days of his [Zacharias'] ministration were accomplished." So by knowing when those days were, we can start counting months. In 1 Chronicles 24:7-10, the twenty-four courses of priests are enumerated and Abia [Abijah] was the eighth. Each course served during normal weeks in succession and all served together during the weeks which contain a Holy Day. Therefore, in 6 B.C. (when John was conceived) Zacharias served in the third week for the Days of Unleavened Bread) and continued through the tenth week (Pentecost). Then at the end of the tenth week (around mid-June by our calendar), he was done and packed up and went home. So Jesus was conceived around mid-December -- six months later. John was therefore born around mid-March, 5 B.C., (Passover/Days of Unleavened Bread time! Any significance?) and Christ was born around mid-September, 5 B.C. (Feast of Tabernacles season, Feast of Trumpets time! Again, any significance?). Now that we have determined that Jesus was born in mid-September, 5 B.C., the next question is, When did Herod die? A seemingly unlikely question to ask, but the answer provides tremendous aid. Although most history books gloss over Herod rather quickly, and sometimes even erroneously, it still remains a simple enough task to see that he expired around mid-April of 4 B.C. (Josephus gives a great many details including proof of the year.) And with Herod leaving the scene a mere seven months after Jesus' arrival, our task of determining the time sequence becomes much simpler. It shows that the assumption of a two-year-old Jesus at the time of the visit to be totally wrong. It also assists with other steps. The familiar "nativity scene" and the attempts to create a "Christmas story" to fit it have caused many to pair up two verses which have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. This is even done by some who realize the total inaccuracy of the story. These two verses are Luke 2:39 and Matthew 2:22. They both document the return of Joseph, Mary, and their Child to Nazareth, but these are not two accounts of the same trip -- they are instead two separate journeys as we shall soon see. The scene begins in Luke 2. Here we see the tax decree given and the trip to Bethlehem followed by the birth of Jesus and the visit by the shepherds. Notice that there is no mention of any magi! Next event: verse 21, on the eighth day Jesus was circumcised. (This comes actually from two sources -- Genesis 17:12 where the eighth day is specified and Leviticus 12:2-3 which explains why. Since Mary was "unclean" for seven days, the infant's contact with her made Him "unclean" also and the priest could not touch either of them!) Next event: verses 22-24, the purification rites specified in Leviticus 12:2-8 and Exodus 13:2 were fulfilled. This was Jesus' fortieth day of life. Following this are the visits and prophecies of Simeon and Anna. Then, and please notice carefully the words in verse 39, "when they performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth." When? After doing their legal duties. Nothing is said about any magi or Egypt or anything else. And where did they go? To their own city! They merely went home. And they went there from Jerusalem. So Jesus was probably around forty-five days old when He finally got to go "home". Now let's move to Matthew 2 and carefully analyze the gold mine of information contained therein. In verse 1 we finally get our magi! What are they looking for? Verse 2: "He that is born King of the Jews." Now, if you were looking for a newborn king, where are you going to look? In the capital city! Where in the capital city? Where the king lives, of course. After all, wouldn't you expect a newborn king to be the son of the present king? Rather obvious! How did they find out about this baby? They saw His "star" back home. Stars were a very important sign in those days of wide-spread astrology (about as wide-spread as it is today!) and carried a lot of weight. Of course this "star" wasn't a star as such, but an angel. (This will become obvious later.) The biblical connection between the two is widely understood and a plain example of it is found in Revelation 1:20. So they come to the present king, Herod, and asked to see his newborn son. As you can well imagine, this rather startled the man because he was totally unaware of any new children in his family! But since this "star" business carried so much weight (not to mention the size of the entourage, as already mentioned), he thought he'd better start asking some questions. There having been a lot of talk recently about a Messiah being due most any time, he checked into that angle and the chief priests and scribes gave him his answer. But old Herod the Great wasn't all that "great" for nothing. No sir! He knew his politics forward, backward, inside-out, and upside-down. He had a pretty good job and he didn't want to take any chances on losing it, so his sharp, cunning, ruthless mind started hatching his evil plot. Verse 7 shows him calling the wise men privately and digging for more information. This quite likely was a private banquet thrown in the honor of these fellow kings where they talked shop, discussed world politics, complained about the economy, and all of the other things kings talk to each other about. When he felt the time was right, Herod popped the big question, but probably downplayed it so that the other kings might not realize the importance he placed on their answer. "By the way, guys, when did this 'star' appear to you, anyway?" And the answer(s) he got he mixed with two primary assumptions he had made and, as we shall see, resulted in a horrible and totally unsuccessful atrocity. After receiving the answer he thought he wanted, he sent the wise men off to Bethlehem to find the child and then let him know about it so he could worship Him too. (Yeah, right!) So out they went. And what happened? They saw their "star" friend again. Notice this, please: They recognized this star! And, as we shall see later, they had not seen it in some time! And what did the "star" do? It went before them and led them to Jesus. What did they do then? They rejoiced with great joy because they had been led to Nazareth where He was now living. These kings would have totally wasted their valuable time and energies (to say nothing of high travel expenses!) on a wild goose chase down in Bethlehem because Jesus was long gone! Of course they were joyous! Then they went in, took care of the formalities, probably had a long and interesting evening discussing things with Joseph and Mary, spent the night (maybe in a HolyDay Inn that Joseph had built!), and went home by a different (and probably more direct) route as the result of their dream. Then when they had departed, Joseph was given his orders to head for Egypt with his family which he quickly obeyed! When Herod finally realized that his Plan A had failed (the wise men didn't return with the requested information), he decided to put Plan B into motion. And verse 16 shows us what that plan was. Unfortunately, it was based on two assumptions that turned out to be (although Herod probably never realized it) totally inaccurate. The first assumption was that the child had remained in or around Bethlehem, which we have already seen was not the case. The second assumption is revealed in the last part of the verse -- he had all the male children from two years old and under slaughtered. How had he arrived at this age? He had asked a question of the wise men and he had been diligent in getting the answer he thought he wanted. What did he ask? "When was this baby supposed to have been born?" Was that his question? NO!! Look back to verse 7. He asked about when the star had appeared -- presuming that this had occurred at the moment of the child's birth. This cannot have been anything but a presumption as there is no other way to explain the data. Even on the surface this is obvious because Jesus was somewhere between 1½ months and 7 months old when this occurred -- most probably 3-4 months and a far cry from two years! But let's look under the surface and understand the full story. Consider this likely scenario: these wise men were kings. They had kingdoms to run. If one were to go anywhere out of his kingdom, he had to make long and careful preparations in order to insure as well as possible the security of his throne. A king who just up and left the country, even if only for a few days, much less weeks or months, might find himself an ex-king upon his return and most likely in front of a firing squad ordered by his successor to prevent any attempts to regain the throne. Even today the leaders of most countries prepare months ahead for out-of-state trips. So God knew these men would need some advance notice and sent an angel (Michael or Gabriel?) to contact each of them saying something to the effect of, "King So-and-so, you are hereby informed that in about a year-and-a-half there will be born a King of the Jews. Please be making arrangements to pay Him a visit. Thank you." So the kings started preparing. Then during the course of normal communications, they all discovered that they all had received the same message. ("Aha! Then I didn't just imagine it!") It is also possible that the angel informed them of who else was being "invited." So they decided, for security reasons as much as anything else, to form a camel-pool and travel together. When Herod asked them when the star appeared, they each said something like, "About a year-and-a-half ago." These guys knew their politics pretty well too, so they only answered the question -- nothing more, nothing less (unless they felt the answer might be damaging). So when Herod decided to implement Plan B, he just tacked on an extra six months to be sure and took care of all the boys under two years. Jesus arrived in Nazareth at about age 1½ months. Give the wise men time to get up there, do their thing, leave, have Joseph and family leave, have Herod realize he had been "had," put the execution order out, have it carried out, and finally die when Jesus was about age seven months, the visit had to have occurred when Jesus was about three or four months of age. Then, when it was all over, Joseph and Mary and Jesus made the Matthew 2:22-23 journey to Nazareth, this time from Egypt. If every piece of information is to be considered, there is no other way to fit together all of the details.
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