THE MAGI

The Wise Men were Magi, magoi as in the original Greek characters. The most frequent characterization says they were astrologers, men who studied the stars and their supposed influence on the earth. They would have had some characteristics of present day astronomers in that they would have located stars, named them, and entered them onto star charts. Beyond that, they would have sought to tie them to historical events on the assumption that if a king were born, war broke out, or a flood came under certain celestial conditions, perhaps when they saw those conditions repeating themselves, a similar event would occur.

In addition, a wisdom movement seems to have swept the ancient world over several centuries. The Old Testament has several wisdom books, especially Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Some Psalms are wisdom Psalms, for example the first one. In the apocrypha we find the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Ben Sirach. These read much like Proverbs, and many people would recognize little difference.

Solomon's reputation of the wisest man could well indicate he was part of the wisdom movement of his day. Since he is not the only author in the Proverbs, he may well have been a patron and collector of wisdom. We know of rulers who supported artists and musicians, so we should not be surprised that ancient rulers also collected wise men around them. Even Herod called for wise men of his own to explor where Jesus was born.

Another issue in Matthew one is the Virgin Birth. I have always accepted this belief quite easily, because I recognize as a kind of creation miracle that seven billion people inhabit this globe, and each one originated as a combination of two microscopic cells. So it the Creator of all decides to bring one child into the world with only one cell from its mother, I have no problem at all.

That said, I want to address a translation problem. When the Revised Standard Version came out in 1952, the translators of Isaiah 7:14 rendered a part of the verse “a young woman shall conceive” rather than “a virgin shall conceive.” Now most virgins are young women, so Isaiah may have indeed referred to an as yet unmarried woman who would conceive shortly. The prophet's point was that by the time a baby could be conceived and grow to the age of weaning (as many as two or three years in that time) the Assyrian threat to Jerusalem will be gone.
The Hebrew word used in Isaiah is “almah,” young woman, not “bethulah” or virgin.

For reasons unknown to us, when a group of 70 scholars translated the OT into Greek, they translated “almah” with the Greek term “parthenos” (as in the building the Parthenon), which does mean virgin. Matthew quotes that Greek translation, called the Septuagint, as a prophesy of the virgin birth. That's ok, as many prophesies have more than one fulfillment. But recognize that Isaiah was not referring to a second virgin birth in his day.

Scholars speculate on who the young woman was, whether Isaiah's wife or a passing girl he pointed out, or just who. But his point for his day was that Assyria would not conquer Jerusalem or Judea. They did, in fact conquer the Northern Kingdom and carry them into captivity. Thus, “the ten lost tribes.”

A third point for the lesson is to note that Matthew included the Gentiles in his gospel that was largely directed to influence the Jews. In the first chapter, Gentiles come from the East to worship Christ, and at the end of his book, the Great Commission sends Jesus's disciples into all the nations.

Herod was crazy, but he had been driven there by his own family plotting against him. He had a wife and mother-in-law who wanted him dead so his son could be king. Others in his family had similar ambitions. Unfortunately, slowly but surely all the plotters came to an early death. That includes the women. So you can imagine his reaction when these wise guys show up looking for the “king of the Jews.” No wonder he ordered all the boy babies under two killed. It totally fits what we know of him.

But the Lord protected His Messiah. He led the Magi to find the baby, but led them back another way. We deduce three wise men from the three gifts, but there could have been any number from 2 to 20. God warned the men in a dream to go back another way, and He also led Josept to escape to Egypt. Dreams have a significant history of divine leadership in the Bible. Some people find them useful today. My own recommendation to interpret your dreams is to identify how you feel in your dream and trasfer to where you feel like that in real life. That often leads to an “aha moment.”s