Gundulf

I don't know how I've gotten into this - I have no desire to defend the Bible on behalf of Christians. There are plenty of serious problems for people who want to say the Bible is true history/inerrant, but I just don't think this is one of them...

In all fairness, if you were to take the Gospel stories at face value (for the sake of argument), wouldn't it be far more fair to say that the tradition
that developed is what gave us the "three" wise men, the wise men showing up at the stable/manger, etc.? And that the idea that these never happened at the same time is simply a return to an accurate reading of the original material?

I don't get it.

I get the impression that people are thinking these Christians like West (who is this, anyway?) are trying to come up with the idea that Jesus was older in Matthew's story than in Luke's, or force the text into that idea in order to solve a difficulty. I don't get that, either. A fair reading of the text (fair not meaning - assuming it is true, but meaning, understanding what the author intends) sure gives me the impression that Jesus was not conceived by Matthew [of course not, he was conceived by God!!! ] as being a newborn, and that without resorting to sad use of original language. If a psycho king wants to kill a newborn, does he tell his soldiers to go and kill kids that are able to walk and talk? Matthew does mention pretty explicitly that Herod chose that age for the death of the kids based on the time of the star's appearance by the wise men. Regardless of the actual history, of whether Herod ordered that, etc., You must be fair - It is quite plausible for someone to read Matthew's account and come away thinking that Matthew conceived of Jesus, at the time of this story, as sufficiently older than a newborn.

spin

By the time they had come (paregenonto from paraginomai) it doesn't matter where they'd come from, does it?

It doesn't need to be the exact day. The text however is explicit: the birth is the time reference.


spin

Gundulf

When my uncle was born, the United States was fighting Nazis.

So these guys "came to Jerusalem from the east" (or "there came Magi from the east to Jerusalem" was your actual literal translation, I think?) When Jesus was born. Fine, if they lived in a Jerusalem suburb, their "coming to Jerusalem" would take a couple of hours; if they lived in Japan, their "coming to Jerusalem" would have taken a couple of months or more. If it used a word that explicitly meant "arrived in Jerusalem" or "were in Jerusalem" when Jesus was born, I think you'd have me. (So if you can show me more to say it is best translated "by the time they had come") But "came to Jeruslam" "when Jesus was born?" means they were already there? I fear that is a stretch. Besides, the "in the days of Herod" thing that also acts as a modifier of the sentence seems to stretch out the possible time.


I'm not trying to argue the point with you, I just don't want you to think that this is somehow a watertight observation that will do any damage to a Fundamentalist viewpoint of their Bible. Sure, you might look at that and think that Matthew was suggesting to his readers that the wise men were already in Jerusalem on some totally unrelated business, and they just had the unexpected perk of their business trip of getting to see the Messiah, or whatever.

But that point is vague enough that it would do no damage to a Fundamentalist whose presupposition is that everything is true - if it is true, then it must be able to be reconciled - if it needs to be reconciled, it is very easy to then interpret Matthew's account as being significantly later than Jesus' actual birth. Trying to reconcile it to Luke or not, I simply think that it is not a stretch in the least, given the whole thing with herod killing kids under 2 "based on the time of the star's appearance" thing, that Jesus was conceived by Matthew as older than a newborn at the time of this event.

spin

You don't need to take every burden on your shoulders. You don't have to understand everything. If something doesn't make sense to you, it maybe because there is no sense in it, or maybe the sense in it is beyond you. You don't need to respond.

I'm not dealing with any reality I may perceive. The text is our guide. It is an obscure window into the writers. They wanted to say things, to do things. We need to know what they said, not what we want them to have said.

It's ok.

(Read the OP.)

He thinks that the text has problems otherwise he wouldn't suggest such a change.

Truly, it's ok.

I guess you should deal with the original language then. As I pointed out making the distinction that it was "when", not "after", some translations use "after" and mismanage the content of the text. Where else has the text been compromised by a priori understandings of the text by the translators?

The "psycho king" doesn't know the whole story. In fact the magi knew more than him. And they didn't go back to help him learn more according to the text. But you're reading between the text and not the text itself, which says,

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, there came Magi from the east to Jerusalem"

What do you want me to say, "literary villains err to the excess"?

The term used for children in Mt 2:16 is the plural of pais. The word for child used for Jesus is paidion, which is the diminuitive of pais, ie a paidion is smaller by nature than a pais, so the distinction you are trying to make about age from the translation isn't in the text.

When you depend on a translation for textual accuracy, you will fail where the translation is not up to the task.


spin

spin

"[I]n the days of Herod" is a contextualization, ie it contextualizes the birth of Jesus in a time frame.

You shouldn't try to make textual points depending on a translation.

(You can understand "when the bullet hit him, he fell to the ground". There is a close connection in time between the first clause and the second. This connection gives you sequence, but doesn't allow you to separate the events in time.)

The text literally says "the magi from the east came to Jerusalem." The interest here is the arrival, not the departure.

Who's trying to do damage to a fundamentalist viewpoint of anything? Textual accuracy is the target.

They came to Jerusalem following a bloody star in search of the messiah.

I'm glad you're concerned about fundamentalists. They are not one of my big concerns.

I can only try to clarify the text for those who want to read.


spin

Gundulf

Right, and if Herod understood them properly, it sounds like he judged the age of the Messiah as to when the star had first appeared...

So sounds like they were on the road a while.


If the star had appeared only to tell the wise men to get to Jerusalem, because coincidentally, right when they got there was when the child was going to be born, why would Herod care all that much about when the star appeared to know at what age he should start killing babies?

spin

Perhaps Herod was linguistically challenged as well.


spin

dzim77

I see your point about developing traditions here, but in this specific case.... are you suggesting Dr West's blog post as an innovation? I've actually heard this idea -that the Maji possibly came a year or two after the shepherds- from my pastor back when I was in elementary school (20 years ago). I've also heard it from several other Christians since then... I thought it was a fairly common idea. Is this the first time you've heard it?

Sorry if I'm being nitpicky, I know that wasn't your main point.

Boro Nut

I think the whole quote was "They came to Jerusalem following a bloody star in search of the frigging messiah. And did they find him? Did they fu.." <hole in parchment>

Boro Nut

Roland

If the damn ancients had just had DATES, we wouldn't be stuck trying to figure out all this nonsense 2000 years later!

:banghead: