DECEMBER 24 — So it’s Christmas. The time when malls fill their atriums and centre courts with over-sized bells and trees from another altitude (or is it latitude?).
There’s candy, there’s (probably) empty gift boxes. We can’t forget the mutant reindeers and sleighs driven by plus-sized red-coated men who don’t shave.
Occasionally, these malls include figurines of the baby Jesus in a manger with his dad and mum surrounded by animals, shepherds and three wise men bearing gifts. With an unusually huge star above them.
This is the traditional nativity scene... which is likely wrong.
If the Biblical story is our map to constructing nativity scenes, then the three wise men (from here on known as the Magi, which is what the Gospel of Matthew calls them) were probably not in the manger with the baby Jesus.
Instead, the Magi likely visited Jesus a few months — or possibly up to two years — after he was born, by which time he may already have been a toddler.
In fact, many people don’t realise that Joseph, Mary and the baby went to Bethlehem twice (!) and it was only on the second time that the Magi visited them.
The Biblical chronology of the first Christmas goes something like this:
The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and proclaims she will give birth to a very special child named Emmanuel or Jesus who would “save people from their sins” (both Mary and Joseph get a shock of their lives, but otherwise all is joyful and good).
Mary and Joseph travel from their kampung in Nazareth to Bethlehem to register for the census decreed by Caesar Augustus (the trip is about 80 miles which is roughly the distance from the KLCC Twin Towers to Malacca’s Jonker Street)!
Mary and Joseph — as everybody knows — can’t find a room in the Holiday Inn @ Beth (due to the fact that many were going for the census registration and also the possibility there was a Jewish feast/festival at the time — kinda like Raya or CNY) so they end up in the manger, where the baby Jesus was born among animals and shepherds
Forty days after the birth, Mary and Joseph took their newborn baby back to Jerusalem to be “consecrated unto God” i.e. baby Jesus had to be presented at the Jerusalem temple together with a sacrificial offering of two turtle doves (hence the lyrics for the second day in 12 Days of Christmas).
Some time after the temple ritual, Mary, Joseph and their baby went again to Bethlehem, most likely because they felt it was a good idea to raise their Messiah-King son in the same place where King David — the greatest human king in Jewish history — grew up); and no this second time they didn’t stay in a manger but a house instead.
A few months to two years later, the Magi came into the picture. Their journey probably started from the Parthian empire (in modern-day Iran); they followed a great star (in the sky, not on the stage) towards Jerusalem, then onwards to Bethelehem (after consulting with King Herod and after deciding to play him out) where they (finally!) met baby Jesus and Mary.
The Bible doesn’t record how many Magi there were, but tradition assumes it’s three since there were three gifts (gold, myrrh and frankincense, see Note 1).
Events after the Magi’s visit then take a grim turn. King Herod, paranoid as most psychotic leaders are, slaughtered all Jewish male kids two years or younger in the hope that the “new king” (who may have just learnt to talk and walk) will be killed too.
As a result, Joseph, Mary and their baby turned fugitive-refugee and ran to Egypt. They stayed there for six to seven years until Herod died (see Note 2), after which they returned to live in Nazareth.
So, there you have it. The Magi were not in the manger with Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds; they only came later and visited Jesus in his Bethlehem house.
We certainly don’t expect kindergarten nativity plays to cut out the Magi from their script but, hey, maybe some timeline adjustments may help? (smile)
But that’s not the only thing odd about the Magi and Christmas. There’s something else and it’s dark, very dark.
According to possibly the first bona fide historian ever, Herodotus, the Magi were hard-core killers.
Originally Zoroastrian priests in ancient Persia, they had a zeal for slaughter and made a great show and fuss out of their ritualistic and religious kills.
Consider this chilling paragraph from Herodotus’ Histories:
“The Magi, in an attempt to obtain favourable omens, cut the throats of white horses into the Strymon. Then, once they had performed this and various other rites in honour of the river, they continued on their way over the bridges that they had discovered were spanning the Strymon at Nine Ways, into the land of the Edonians. Informed as to its name — the Nine Ways — they buried alive in the ground a matching number of local boys and girls. This practice of burying people alive is very much a part of Persian custom” (Book 7:113-114)
Hence, this is one of two macabre elements missing from many Christmas stories. The first, already alluded to, is King Herod’s genocide of male boys in Bethlehem aged two and below. The second is how among the historically recorded visitors bearing gifts to baby Jesus included people from what can only be described as an ancient death-cult, one which had no compunction about burying kids alive.
That the Bible locates these murderous folks (or, at the very least, their successors) so close to the birth of Jesus offers a new twist to Christmas, no?
The Magi — the “three wise men” — hardly fit the Christmassy season of joy and cheer (and they simply don’t belong in the nativity scene).
But they managed to outwit psychotic King Herod and thus played a part in delaying Herod’s slaughter from reaching the baby Jesus. Their gifts, also, surely helped Joseph finance the family’s long stay in Egypt.
So perhaps this season’s reminder is that everyone has a chance to make amends with God. No matter how cruel or evil one has been in the past — with the right heart — we can not only be put on the path of goodness, but even be co-workers towards a better world.
Merry Christmas, New Malaysia.
Note 1: Although it could also be argued that the Magi came from the Arabian peninsula, given that frankincense and myrrh originated from there.
Note 2: Herod died in 4 BC, which means that Jesus was born between 6 BC and 4 BC, not AD 1.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
