Musings on Scripture

– and what isn’t always said

Tag: Herod

1st January 2017 (Epiphany)

Published / by Steven Secker / Leave a Comment

Matthew 2:1-12

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’


Text © The New Revised Standard Version (English Edition) alt, used with permission.

If you ask someone who knows the Christmas story, even among those who go to church regularly, to tell you what they know, you are likely to hear about the angel visiting Mary, about Joseph and Mary having to travel to Bethlehem, about the lack of room available for them and their need to rest in a stable, about the shepherds in the fields being visited by an angel telling them of Christ’s birth, about the wise men (or kings) visiting Herod on the way to Bethlehem but returning by another route, and about the star which guided those wise men on their way. When we delve deeper we discover that Luke has the story of the shepherds, but no wise men, Matthew has the wise men, but no shepherds, and Mark and John don’t mention what happened surrounding the birth. Our Christmas story is, therefore, a mixture of two gospel renditions of the event.

Both Matthew and Luke place the birth of Jesus in the time of King Herod, who was appointed to the position in about 37BC and died, still holding that position, in 4BC. On that basis Jesus Christ was born “before Christ.” That, of course, doesn’t stop us referring to the era based on the birth of Christ, however inaccurate the calculation might have been, as the Christian era, and the time before that as “Before Christ”. There is nothing derogatory for other religions to complain about if we name an era after a particular person. People of other faiths might object to public references of “Anno Domini” – in the year of our Lord, but that shouldn’t stop Christians from using the term in Christian circles, or referring publicly to the current era as “Christian” rather than “Common”.

When I read about “all of Jerusalem” being frightened about the news of Christ’s birth I begin to wonder who “all of Jerusalem” refers to, and why they, rather than Herod, should be frightened at all. With Herod’s reputation for being a cruel leader it might have been that those in Jerusalem were afraid of the consequences of someone potentially taking over Herod’s kingdom, and the possibility of some form of retribution. The Jewish leaders might, if they had been reading their own scriptures carefully, have been afraid of “The King of the Jews” being someone who would take away the status and prestige of their being religious leaders, but that would hardly be “all of Jerusalem.” I have to wonder what a 67 year old king, in a time when three score and ten years was a real achievement, would have to be afraid of with the birth of a new child. Surely he would have been dead, from old age if nothing else, before the new King of the Jews was old enough to do anything. In the verses immediately after the passage read for Epiphany, Matthew tells of Herod’s rage when he realised that he had been deceived, and his order that all boys two years and younger in Bethlehem and surrounding areas should be killed. Whether or not that is a historical event, with Herod’s reputation for violence suggesting that it might have occurred but not been noteworthy enough to be recorded elsewhere, and the lack of reference to such an event in even early Christian writings suggesting it was a contrived fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, there are things to note. The wise men saw a new ‘star’ in the sky and travelled, with camels, some distance before they reached Jerusalem. It wasn’t as if they could get into a car and hurtle along at 100km/hr and be there in a couple of days. Camels might be good for carrying loads, but they are slow. It could well have taken these wise men two years to get to Jerusalem. If Herod did order the murder of boys two years and under, based on timing given by the wise men, then Jesus would have been born in 6BC or earlier. If you remember the comments on last week’s gospel reading, there is some support, though not strong, for Quirinius to have been pseudo-governor in Syria around 6BC. Another point to note is that the birth was reported to have taken place in a stable in Bethlehem. Matthew, however, comments that the wise men entered a house, not a stable. What’s more, they found ‘the child’ (‘paidion’ in the Greek) whereas we might expect them to have found ‘the baby’ (brephos) if their visit was immediately on the heels of the birth. Had Mary and Joseph moved into a house in Bethlehem? The registration which brought them to Bethlehem wouldn’t have taken the two years it appears to have taken the wise men to reach Jesus, so had they returned to Nazareth and continued their lives in their own home there? If the slaughter of young boys was, indeed, a contrived fulfilment of scripture then there would be reason for Matthew not to suggest that the wise men had travelled on to Nazareth. Travelling back to their own countries by another route would have been easier if they had encountered Christ in Nazareth, rather than Bethlehem. The gospel only tells us that the wise men found Mary and the child – there’s no mention of poor Joseph. Wouldn’t he have stopped doing his carpentry if three high ranking delegates from another country appeared at his house? What about that star? More than 2000 years on from the event, we know that, as the earth rotates the stars appear to move across the sky, but is it really possible to say that a star stopped over one building rather than over another? A heavenly event, such as the alignment of certain stars or planets, could easily have resulted in the guidance those wise men used, but they still had to depend on advice from Herod, or the religious leaders of the time, to find the actual place they were seeking.

Much has been said about the gifts the wise men brought: gold, to mark Christ’s status as a king; frankincense, marking his deity; and myrrh, used for embalming a body after death. Three gifts to show His importance in the world. Three important gifts from gentile leaders. We are gentile leaders, so what are we offering the new-born king?

One final note: were there three wise men, or four? The Story of the Other Wise Man, by Henry van Dyke, tells of a fourth wise man who intended to join the other three but was delayed and eventually caught up with Christ, who was, at that time, on the way to His crucifixion. Artaban used his gifts to help many others on the long journey to Jerusalem. That story was inspired by God, just as the canonical scriptures were, but it was written a number of centuries too late to be included.