The three wise men (page 3)

Jeffro

Since the account is allegorical, it doesn't matter much anyway.

Sad emo

Since the account is allegorical, it doesn't matter much anyway.

But wouldn't you agree that the message conveyed by the allegory may have some importance (even if only to believers)?

For example Jesus not being in a palace = you find him where you least expect to.

Clam

"Many ancient threads will rise up and deceive many and lead many into error."

Pubsinger

I read a really interesting answer to this question a few years ago.

When Daniel was captive in Babylon he was made head over all the wise men by Nebuchadnezzer because he alone could interpret the dream about the image of various metals

The assumption is that as Prefect over the "wise men" Daniel actually taught them his beliefs and told them about some of the Jewish Messianic prophecies.

One of these was regarding the "Star"

So the astrologers, who were also astonomers, were aware of the prophecy concerning the appearance of the Messiah.

They said that they had seen the star and come to "Worship the King"

So the "wise men" were not pagan astrologers. They were believers. Descendants of Daniels contemporaries. Living in a foreign land.

I don't have the details to hand but I'll did them out and post them when I do.

They are found in a book by Arnold Fruchenbaum.

They make very interesting reading.

People lack the concept of the original word for star. It means crossing. Because of this it can be two stars, and they dont even have too merge to look like one. MERGE? well not a binary star but when one star Venus crosses over another star Jupiter. You see we know they are nto stars, but original astronomy calls them stars. So by modern redefining, others can pretend they have truth by saying there is no star that stands still, when here even the sun at solstice standing still is a star. The sign of the end was by three calendars (Venus-Mars-Jupiter). This allows three dates to be the same date in calendar. Or when the three planets are near each other then many think it is Armageddon. Jehovah aired my declaration that we should all be activists, and that all activism should be verbal not physical on Oprah the same date that I predicted the known triaqd of those three planets in 1991 would probably put Saddam Hussein on TV claiming Armageddon. It did. The 4pm showing was interrupted by Saddam's threat.

So this is way too much evidence to prove there were three Magi. Why would there be 4 or 8 or 12 if it was a Persian shame and disgust to even think the Christ would be Jewish instead of Persian. The Persian Magi of 523bc took the throne to honor 1507 and 1508 Gregorian years from Noahs death as Christ to return Noahs spirit as Christ. (Cyrus was 1460 years 365 leap days; while Darius of 522bc is when 1508 calendar years of 365 days will return seasons as 1507 years. This is because the extra 48 years is 12 leap days that put the 365-day calendar date 12 days earlier than dates were 1460 years ago. The seasonal dates move backward as in Jan 6 back to Dec 21, and as in July 10 back to Jun 20, and April 7 back to March 20, and Oct 12 back to Sep 20. So the point is Persian Magi not only took Persian throne to be the Christ-king that year, but they also stopped the jewish temple. So there definately were not MORE than three Magi rejecting the norm of their religion, but were three to match the three stars as THE STAR at the time of the 4th star Saturnalia, planet Saturn, unless you wish to add the solstice sun as 5th star. The three gifts also confirm three as gold for venus and myrhh for Mars and incense for Jupiter given by three men, not two, not one. It is a very stupid issue for WatchTower to make, childishly irrelevent if NUMBER of then was all that mattered in the issue... but it is definately very relevant as you can see so much is given to you here by me that they have failed to care about. Perhaps they can wake up the bride from 1874-1914, or keep them awake from 1914-1975, but they certainly have not woken them up to facts that determine the final wake-up call.

kinneretov

hey, it's great to see that the forum still kicking:)

by the way, i would like to share with you an article i wrote about the jewish religion, especially for the jewish girls out there:

the article name is tallit for girls

it's about the jewish tradition of putting tallit when we say our prayers.

i would love to know more about you and your religion, just feel free to share with me!

Yours,

Kinneret

binadub

This may have been mentioned, but there is no scriptural indicate that the number of wisemen was three. It just says that wise men from the east came to Jerusalem asking, "Where is the child ..." (Matt.2:1)

There was a large population of Jews in Egypt. The history of the Coptic church is older than that of the Catholics (Roman or Greek Orthodox). It is interesting that in order to find this information you have to specify “Coptic” if you do a search of Christian history. Otherwise a simple search of, say, “history of Christianity” will generally follow only the Catholic lineage, even though the Coptic church is older and alive and well to this day. They trace their papal lineage back to Mark (companion of Peter) as the first pope in the first century. They are known to be the first to have monestaries. For this reason, many biblical scholars believe that when Peter wrote his letter “from Babylon”, that it was not as the Catholics claim to be Rome, but rather literally from Babylon, Egypt, about 150 miles from Jerusalem. There is even a church in Egypt which is claimed to have given lodging to Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus. Also interesting, many if not most of the earliest bible fragments found are in Egypt. The first scholarly Christian school was in Alexandria, and records indicate that much was later inherited by the Roman church.

The real mystery—imo—is the fact that this escape to Egypt is recorded only in Matthew's gospel.
Luke, who is supposed to have been the most thorough in his account, records Joseph and Mary taking the infant Jesus to the temple to be circumcised and named 8 days after his birth (Lk 2:21-24). After Jesus was properly blessed by Simeon and Anna (Lk 2:25-38), it says:

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. (Lk 2:39-40).

That’s almost as strange as why a basic search of the history of Christianity tends to fail to mention the Egyptian source.

Here’s a pretty good link about it:

http://st-takla.org/Coptic-church-1.html

~Binadub

mP

the atory of the three wise men, was inserted to show christs divinity and rexognition ofnthis fact by the wise of persia. persia was very much respected in the area of astrology, in nit onlynjudea but other parts of that world. not many realise that pharisee is a play on farsi another name for persia.'in favt today the persian kanguage is called farsi. a simole search of images on google for -- synogoue ans zodiax-- beings up lota of matches. another interesting sxripture to read is job 38:31-32 has an admission that god xontrols the infleunces of the zodiac likw orion. howevwr dont look at thismacripture in nwt because they leave all thenkeynwords in hebrew so one isnconfused. any other bible however includes the astrology, orion etc words.

R. Jerome Harris

We are not told how many magoi there were. These men were wise or "educated" in reading the stars. They were astrologers. No one else saw a star because they would not know what they were looking at.

That is why we were told that THEY saw the star while THEY were in the east. The Most High God would not have used a star to lead men involved in a plot - though unwittingly - to kill his Son.

Satan would have done that! He would stand to benefit from the one who would eventually abyss him and destroy him. (Still yet future).

Be careful. The story does not say "how many" astrologers there were.

Splash

Gold represents kingship, royalty.

Frankincense is the priestly incense used in offerings.

Myrrh is used in death preparations.

So these gifts identified a king priest who would have a significant death.

I also think this can be easily debunked.

The three wise men