The Mystery of the Magi By Dwight Longenecker, Post #3

This is the third post of a series on Dwight Longenecker’s The Mystery of the Magi: The Quest to Identify the Three Wise Men.  You can read Post #1 here.  

Post #2 here. 

 

Summary

Chapter 3: “Fantastic Flights of Fantasy”

There is clearly a disconnect between the folk understanding of the Magi story and what is actually told in the Gospel of Matthew.  How did this come about?  Longenecker shows how the historical kernel found in the Gospel became legend and then myth through elaborations from (1) the Protoevangelium of James, (2) Clement of Alexandria’s linking the Magi to Persia, (3) the third century “The Legend of Aphroditianus,” (4) Gnostic writers associating the Magi as masters of hidden knowledge, (5) the stories and legends of the Magi created during the Middle Ages, and (6) the modern times iconic representations of Romanticized men of different races who came from the remote parts of the world.  And so we have the myth of three kings from different continents of various ages named Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar who followed a magical star to bring gifts to the new born king of Israel.

Chapter 4: “Sages and Stargazers”

It was widely assumed that the Magi were from Persia.  What Matthew tells us is that they only came from the East.  Longenecker provides a history of the Middle Eastern civilizations to Christ and then also describes the evolution of a priest category of pagans that were called Magi within this Middle Eastern history.  Ultimately the Magi became part of the Zoroastrian culture and religion within Persia.  Steadily within the Persian royal court the Magi for various reasons declined in power and influence until Alexander the Great conquered Persia and the Magi were dispersed throughout the Middle East.  Eventually the Parthians took control of what was once Persia, which led to the dissolution of the Magi as having any power or wealth by the time of Christ.  And so Longenecker reaches the conclusion it is unlikely the Persian Magi were the visitors to Christ.

Chapter 5: “The Riddle of the Nabateans”

Longenecker gives a history of the Nabatean Kingdom and the nature of its people, fiercely independent and masters of trade on which they became extremely wealthy.  The Nabatean Kingdom ranged east of Israel on the Arabian Peninsula.  Originally nomadic traders in the sixth century BC, they settled around what is today city of Petra.  They had established trade routes across the Arabian Desert.  Longenecker identifies the pre-history of the Nabateans to the Edomites, an Arabean nomadic tribe that descended from the Biblical Abraham. 

When Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, Jews dispersed throughout the Arabian peninsula.  Because of the similarity between Judaism and the Nabatean religion, the two cultures intertwined and came to have mutual interests.

Chapter 6: “The Middle Eastern Melting Pot”

The gist of this chapter is in answering the question of why would the Magi, even if they had knowledge of a Jewish king being born in Bethlehem, why would they undergo a long journey to find him?  The answer is in that the Nabateans had cultural connections to Judaism.  Longenecker identifies King Nobonidus of the sixth century BC as having a special relationship with the Jews.  The Nabotean connection with Matthew’s Magi are important for several reasons.  (1) The Nabotean Kingdom and Judah were bordering nations.  (2) Large numbers of Jewish immigrants had integrated into the Nabotean Kingdom.  (3) The Nabotean Magi as religious figures had adopted religious elements from Judaism, and so had a religious motivation to knowing the divinely born king of the Jews. 

###

My Comment:

Fascinating. I had no idea about some of these cultures east of Judea. My history of that time and place is very limited.

Joseph’s Reply:

When I went to the Holy Land we visited Petra and so I learned a little about the Nabateans that way, but the ins and outs of contemporary Parthian politics are something that I didn't have familiarity with. The most I remember learning directly was that the first triumvirate started to fall apart when Crassus lost a major battle to the Parthians somewhere in the Syrian desert, but that was a solid 50 years before the Magi.

Casey’s Comment:

I'm only through chapter 4 but what is striking to me, is how much information is encoded in our stories. In modernity, we dismiss a story as fiction because we are not well trained to decode.

 

Take a single word like Dog. A dog is made up of skeleton, muscle, fur, skin, teeth, eyes, etc. But an eye is also made up of composite parts... which are made up of composite parts... Now we don't say the idea of Dog is fiction. (Well some do, but not normal people) Dog is the reality - the meaning - of those assembled parts.

 

Stories, particularly fairy tales, folk tales, legends, are like that. Over time, thousands of bits of information get encoded and zipped into this story file that our brains can hold and process and transmit to others. It isn't whether the story is true or not but rather that the story is a container for truth. We all need to get better at being able to open that container and decode the contents, I think.

 

Although the book isn't presented as such, this is exactly what it is showing us.

My Reply to Joseph:

You know, I know the Crassus story very well but I never distinguished the civilization he was up against. I knew it was from East of the Arabian peninsula in what was in the lands of Persia. Even though I probably read Parthians, my mind conflated them with the Persians. I didn't realize until now they were two separate cultures, even though they came from the same territory.

My Reply to Casey:

I like the word encoded when it comes to the Bible, especially the New Testament. Because it comes after the Old Testament, the NT has so much integrated from its predecessor. In lterary terms, it would be called allusions. Certain words or phrases or actions allude to elsewhere so that one is reading with so much in mind simultaneously.

 

The perfect example are the Marian doctrines. I just finishing reading Brad Pitre's Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah. We all know the Marian doctrines but the rationale for them are difficult to see when just reading the NT in isolation. But they are all there, encoded, as you use the term, and perhaps I would say alluded to by careful word and phrase choice. What a great book that Pitre book is. I thought I knew all the rationales for the Marian doctrines, but I was shocked to see how much more there was. It would be wonderful and eye opening if we could read this book in the book club one day.

Casey’s Reply:

Think about when a grandfather tells his grandson a story and then many years later that grandson becomes a grandfather and tells that same story. Of course, he won't remember that childhood story word for word. Rather, he captures the essence of the story in the details he chooses. Some of those details would be the childhood impressions of the unspoken delivery of his own grandfather, which now become verbally expressed. This occurs generation after generation. Each generation recognizes it as the same story but the literal story itself keeps evolving until it is written and formalized.

 

To unpack every story would require a book like this one. But I believe if one learns to be tuned into a story, you can absorb the truth of it even if you can't articulate it. Something more obviously experienced when reading poetry for example.

###

When driving home yesterday afternoon from shopping, I had Relevant Radio, a Catholic radio channel around the country, on my radio and on the Drew Moriani show he had Fr. Dwight Longenecker on to discuss his Magi book.  It was a twenty-ish minute conversation, and while he didn’t say anything that was not in the book, it was still a blessing to listen to it.  Now that all radio shows get turned into podcasts, you can access the show and listen for yourself.  So the Relevant Radio podcasts get broken into hour long units.  Fr. Longenecker’s portion was the first half of the hour.  The second half was a discussion about the guiding star with Fr. Chris Corbally, a priest astronomer.  That was interesting and is worth listening to.  Here is the link to the “Hour 3 of The Drew Mariani Show 12-22-21.”

###

Summary

Chapter 7, “Prophesies or Predictions”

Here Longenecker explores whether the Magi visit to the Christ child are a fulfillment of an Ol Testament prophesy, as many events in Matthew’s Gospel.  First Longenecker provides distinguishing criteria between a prophesy—a supernatural glimpse into the future—and a prediction—a logical forecast based on common sense.  Longenecker address the prophesy and/or predictions of Balaam (Nu 24:17), the Wisdom tradition, the various chapters of the Book of Isaiah, and from texts from the Dead Sea scrolls.  Longenecker concludes that the Nabatean wise men must have been familiar with some of these prophesies.  

Chapter 8, “The Herod Connection”

Here Longenecker explores the context of Herod the Great to the Magi story.  First Longenecker provides the background as to how the Nabateans evolved from a nomadic culture to a settled civilization, tracing the melting pot of northern Arabian cultures in the sixth century BC.  By the first century BC, the Middle East was wrought with rival monarchies and civil wars.  The Hasmonean dynasty came to rule Judea as a sort of client king under the Rome.  Herod’s family traces roots to several of the northern Arabian cultures, and his mother was a Nabatean princess married to the neighboring ruler of Judea, Herod’s father Antipater.  Herod even spent a good deal of time raised at the Nabatean court when Antipater sent his wife and children to his wife’s family when a rival was looking to unseat Antipater.  Herod eventually took over as king of Judea through shrewd maneuverings between the Roman and Nabatean rivalry.  By the time of Jesus’ birth, the Nabateans were seeking the good graces of Herod and had every reason to send envoys to the King of Judea. 

Chapter 9, “The Three Treasures”

Here Longenecker provides the context and significance of the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh given to the Christ child.  First Longenecker de-mythicizes the theological significance of gold for Christ’s kingship, frankincense for Christ’s priesthood, and myrrh for Christ’s sacrificial death.  While the three gifts carry such symbolism, it is more likely that they were selected because they were precious commodities found mostly in the Nabatean kingdom.  Longenecker also spends some space explaining the use of camels and the significance of homage and worship the Magi gave to the new born king.

###

My Comment:

I think Fr. Longenecker has done a great job in researching all this and drawing very logical conclusions.

Casey Replied:

I find the argument compelling. I would be very interested to read some friendly counter-arguments. I wonder why these ideas aren't more commonplace.

My Reply to Casey:

I agree Casey. I think what Longenecker proposes is very likely. If you find any counter arguments, please post them here.

Casey Replied:

Well I guess the thing is that everyone just sweeps it away so I don't see any counter-arguments. In this interview, Fr. Longnecker himself admits he was surprised to find nobody had written this story prior to him. "Who were the Three Wise Men? A priest’s quest for the truth – Catholic World Report" https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/11/20/who-were-the-three-wise-men-a-priests-quest-for-the-truth/ Seems like a very basic, obvious, literal interpretation and nobody seems to have looked into it at all. Odd for a story that is so prominent in our imaginations.

My Reply to Casey:

Yes, it’s strange. It does require quite a bit of knowledge about the ancient world outside the Roman Empire. It’s probably not something a western scholar would delve to deeply. I had never heard of the Nabateans before. I think most took the easy answer and decided the Magi were Persian. The countries and cultures east of the Roman Empire are all a blur to most. Let’s be grateful for Longenecker’s investigation and conclusions.

Kerstin Commented on My Summary:

Manny wrote: "Here Longenecker provides the context and significance of the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh given to the Christ child. First Longenecker de-mythicizes the theological significance of gold for Christ’s kingship, frankincense for Christ’s priesthood, and myrrh for Christ’s sacrificial death. While the three gifts carry such symbolism, it is more likely that they were selected because they were precious commodities found mostly in the Nabatean kingdom."

It is rather interesting. Though I would say we shouldn't overlook that this is one of these both/and situations. The commercial significance of the gifts became the theological and symbolic gifts once they came in contact with Christ.

My Reply to Kerstin:

I agree. The same thought came to me as I read it. I suspect Fr. Longenecker would agree too.