The Mystery of the Magi by Dwight Longenecker, Post #1

This is the first of several posts on The Mystery of the Magi: The Quest to Identify the Three Wise Men by Fr. DwightLongenecker, an exploration into the historical roots of the legend of the Magi who bring gifts to the infant Jesus at is now called The Feast of the Epiphany.  Fr. Dwight is a convert to Catholicism by way of first, Evangelical Protestantism, and then, Anglicanism, and after converting to Catholicism eventually became a Catholic priest.  He’s written many books and maintains a blog from where the link to his bio comes from. 

We read Mystery of the Magi as our Christmas read at Goodreads Catholic Thought Book Club during Advent and into Christmas.  These posts will be my comments and thoughts mostly, but there was a back and forth that requires I post to give context to my comments.  We capped the reading of the book with two poems about the epiphany narrative, T. S. Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi” and G. K. Chesterton’s “The Wise Men.”  We discussed both poems and I’ll post my analysis and comments of the poems after the last post on the book.

 

Manny’s Opening Comment:

When it comes to the Magi, I have to say it is a difficult notion to believe. Strange kings from distant lands arriving together at the birth of Jesus. I am always open to the possibilities of all Bible events, no matter how strange. On the one hand, the Magi are not miracles where something of a supernatural occurrence has taken place. While miracles might actually be less possible, they are somehow more believable. I believe in the Magi, but help my unbelief!

Introduction, Chapters 1 and 2

Summary

Introduction:

(1) Longenecker describes a children’s Christmas play where the full mythic notion of the Three Wise Men are on display.  (2) He transitions to all the childish legends we now hold of Christmas, such as Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  (3) He outlines how real historical facts can become legend and then myth, such as with King Arthur.  He reaches this conclusion:

 

In a similar way, in most historical accounts of the ancient world there are kernels of fact beneath the fanciful tales. Over the years the much-loved stories are shared and elaborated. They evolve with time and the telling. People move and take their stories with them. New cultures interact with old, and the stories develop and change. It is the work of scholars to dig deep and find the foundation of truth that lies beneath the legend.

(4) Longenecker turns to the actual record of the Magi in Matthew’s Gospel and he points out what is missing.

Anyone who reads Matthew’s story closely will notice immediately that certain details we all take for granted are missing. There are no camels. The wise men are not named Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior. And the text does not say that there are only three of them. Matthew doesn’t even hint that the wise men are kings, and he doesn’t say they came from Persia, India, China, or Africa. In fact, he doesn’t say they came from far away. He simply says they were “from the East.” Neither does the text say that they followed the star across the desert sands to Jerusalem. It simply says, “We saw his star when it rose.”

 

Finally, the popular idea, reinforced by millions of crèches, that the wise men adored the child alongside the shepherds in the stable on Christmas night has no basis in Matthew’s account. There are no shepherds when the Magi arrive in Bethlehem, and they find Mary and the child not in a stable but in a “house.” Furthermore, we get the impression that the “child” is no longer a newborn.

(5) So is the Magi story historically true?  And if it’s not how can one trust the Bible?  This seems to undermine those who Longenecker calls “Believers with Blinders.” 

(6) On the other hand, those Longenecker calls “Scholars and Skeptics” dismiss the entire Magi story, the whole thing being fanciful. 

(7) Longenecker outlines the plan for his book, understanding Matthew, understanding the historical circumstances, who could the wise men have been, and are there natural explanations.

Chapter 1: “Is the Bible True?”

(1) Longenecker describes the three ways to understand “truth.”  (2) He describes how skeptics from the seventeenth century to the present have questioned the historical validity of the Bible stories.  (3) He describes how recent scholarship has reexamined the history to find that aspects of the stories may have had foundation in history, including the infancy stories, despite scholar’s skepticism.

 

In the early twentieth century, Biblical scholars began to write off the stories of Jesus’ birth—especially the story of the wise men—as pious fantasies. They did so without considering whether the stories might at least be rooted in real events, so they never did the necessary research to uncover the historical element buried beneath layers of legend. Once they decided, based on their preconceived notions, that the stories were not historical, they didn’t give the question a serious consideration.

(4) This book is going to challenge that skepticism and try to find the real history beneath the legend.  (5) Longenecker then describes how to properly read the Bible as those in the first century would have understood it.

Chapter 2: “Matthew: Man of History”

(1) To understand the Magi story, Longenecker stipulates we must understand the “mind of Matthew and his world.”  (2) According to several sources, Matthew originally wrote a “sayings” Gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic, which was an early version of the Gospel According to Matthew.  (2) But ultimately the Greek version of Matthew’s Gospel relied on Mark’s Gospel.

 

The detective work becomes more intriguing because much of the language in Matthew’s gospel is virtually identical to that in Mark’s gospel, leading scholars to suppose that the author of the Greek version of Matthew’s gospel used Mark’s account as a source, adding Mark’s stories to Matthew’s original Hebrew collection of sayings for a more complete gospel story.

(3) Was the Magi story, which is only in Matthew, a later added embellishment or an early Matthew sayings? 

 

If the stories and sayings found only in Matthew’s gospel date back to that older, Hebrew redaction of oral traditions, then they are among the earliest recorded and must have come from people who had first-hand knowledge. As the renowned New Testament scholar Raymond Brown—no traditionalist—concluded, “The simplest explanation of the pre-Mathean background of the magi story is that it is factual history passed down from the time of Jesus’ birth in family circles.”

(4) Longenecker goes through an intricate analysis of dating Matthew’s Gospel, and comes to the conclusion that the earlier sayings Gospel was written ten to twenty years after Christ’s death.

 

If, however, it was Matthew the apostle who began to collect the stories and sayings of Jesus that were circulating just ten or twenty years after his death, then it is probable that the story of the Magi originated with people close to the actual events. If this is so, it is far less likely that the story of the Magi is a mere fable.

(5) Longenecker stipulates it is important to keep in mind that Matthew was a Jew writing to Jewish Christians:

 

Matthew had the task of convincing his fellow Jews not only that Jesus was the long-looked-for Messiah but also that the Gentiles were part of God’s plan.

 

The second thing to remember is that Matthew’s audience of Jewish Christians in the first years after Jesus’ death and resurrection—a small underground group—were persecuted by the Romans for being Jews and by their fellow Jews for being Christians. We will see later why appreciating this double persecution is crucial to understanding Matthew’s telling of the Magi story.

(6) Longenecker shows how through the “criterion of dissimilarity” the Magi story should be considered authentic.  (7) He also shows how through “criterion of embarrassment” the Magi should also be considered true.  (8) Finally if one can show that the Magi story also satisfies the criterion of cultural and historical congruency” then we can firmly believe in its veracity.  That’s what the book will attempt to do.

Well, let's start with the legend version first.