Chili

I think they call that Induction in Port Royal Logic.

mountainman

After converting the Buddhists and Hindus to Christianity, Thomas Judas trecks to the homeland of the Magi, and converts them too to Christianity. This proves the Magi were historical.

Chili

Of course they were historical but were not about evangelisation and the furthest from that of all . . . and in fact they are the end of living on earth that for Joseph here meant heaven on earth as a sage now who knows that things are just the way they are and would be different if they could be different.

Maybe I should add that in Catholic Orthodoxy Christmas is not celebrated until they arrived to confirm that indeed Joseph was home to receive those gifts because nothing is worse than the filioque-on-the-run where the 'angel of light' must pick up the slack as for them "the father I are not [fully] one" wherefore Jesus must leave to send 'down' the spirit of the father, which is all over John but specifically in 15:26 "will send" that is confirmed in 20:22 "and send" when Jesus was fully one with the father while showing the 'stitch-marks' to prove that, please notice! and I wonder if Thomas Judas (?) could show the same marks . . . or was just a 'holy roller-on-the-run.'

So it is no secret that the filioque is intrisically wrong but was coined into the Creed to get some 'fire going on earth' to spread the good news abroad far and wide where wolves may be wolves, but not in sheeps-clothing 'there' and so are very effective as they could show signs like no other has ever seen, and you can read more about that in Rev.13:11-- and later in 14-11 they will have no rest by day or by night, . . . and then in verse 13 read about those with stitch-marks to show and so is where Joseph was at in my first line above.

Minimalist

You always bring a smile, M/m!

mountainman

gold (solidi), frankincense, and myrrhth

Chili

Those mythmakers were not dumb and knew that when beauty itself was found you can only walk away from the gold but not from the frankincense and myrrh.

Minimalist

"Thanks a lot for the gold and frankincense but don't worry too much about the myrrh next time."

-- Life of Brian

Chili

Well yes, it piles up, but what are you gonne do? give it to the poor and lead them further astray? as there is no worth in gold except in the mind of the poor? and is that not why it piles up? . . . and so then the filioque a kind of a gold harvester with a fan to show where the action is at.

DCHindley

His Doctoral dissertation is downloadable as a PDF file here.

Based on a work included in a larger 8th century Syriac codice, Landau proposes that the peculiar 1st person version of the mission of the Magi at the heart of the story was written in late 2nd century or later, and redacted in the 3rd century to include a third person "voice over" by the Apostle Thomas, who explains that he found the Magi preaching the good news of the christ's birth in the east, and baptized them into the Christian faith.

The popular level book linked below is a shameless marketing piece of crap, IMHO. I am reminded of Edward Szekely's Essene Gospel of Peace, also supposed to be based on an (conveniently lost) Aramaic scroll in the Vatican Library. Szekely used his to promote his new-age themed organization that made money by sponsoring pricy seminars on raw vegetarian living and Essene meditation.

Here is Edmond Bordeux Szekely's story:

Szekely claimed to have found an Aramaic translation of The Essene Gospel of Peace and The Essene Book of Revelation at the Vatican library. In the scriptorium of the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino he claimed to have found the original Hebrew text of The Essene Gospel of Peace.[3] His findings, as did the writings of Romain Rolland, often challenged the assumptions of conventional religious adherents and politicized, established religious institutions about the life and teachings of Jesus, and he was therefore often criticized by them.

... While Szekely's claimed translations of the so-called "Essene Texts" have drawn interest from followers of various faiths, the original manuscripts have never been located, and have been considered forgeries by some modern religious scholars.

Author Keith Akers[5] says the health concepts such as raw foods and colonic enemas in Szekely's claimed translation reflect vegetarian and naturopathic fads of the early twentieth century rather than historical practices.

When University of Lund theologian Per Beskow investigated Szekely's claims in Strange Tales About Jesus, both the Vatican and the National Library of Vienna denied that the original manuscripts existed. The Vatican also denied that Szekely had ever been admitted to the Vatican Archives in 1923. The third claimed manuscript source was the library at Monte Cassino, which was destroyed during World War II.[6] Edmund Bordeaux Szekely

Szekely elsewhere claims that

...the complete manuscripts ... exist in Aramaic in the Secret Archive of the Vatican and in old Slavonic in the Royal Archives of the Habsburgs (Austria).

The existence of these two versions [is attributed] to the Nestorian priests who, under pressure of the advancing hordes of Genghis Khan, were forced to flee from the East towards the West, bearing all their ancient scriptures and ikons with them. The ancient Aramaic texts date from the 3rd century after Christ, while the old Slavonic version is a literal translation of the former. Exactly how the texts traveled from Palestine to the interior of Asia into the hands of the Nestorian priests, archaeologists are not yet able to reconstruct for sure. [Source here]

I do not know Laudau's motivations. I will tell you that is degree was in Theology (ThD). Szekely claims to have earned a PhD, but I cannot find anything on what the subject was or when it was awarded. He supposedly was a professor of Philosophy and Psychology as well.

DCH

Cege

I heard a proclamation in a church class from a laymen that the "magi" were a group of people who traveled in groups of 120. Darn if I can Google up anything relating to that "information". Anyone know where it might come from?