question about twelfth night

[cellio]

The oddest questions come into my mind sometimes. Today's came while reading an article about festivities of the day. I suspect I have both readers with the same question and readers with the answer, so I'll ask here. (Tried Wikipedia, tried Google.)

The feast of epiphany is on the 12th day of Christmas. The magi weren't there from the start; the star showed up on the day of Jesus's birth and, after seeing it, the magi spent some time getting there. (I don't know if that's in Christian scripture or tradition or what, but I understand it to be consensus.) Epiphany is the celebration of the magis' arrival.

The Christian bible tells us that Mary had to give birth in a stable because there was no room at the inn.

Every nativity scene I have ever seen shows the magi and everyone else crowded around the child -- in the stable.

Are we to understand that the family is held to have camped out there for 12 days? Or did artistic license get way out of hand and it wasn't worth the trouble to rein it in?

From what I've seen, these sorts of questions are less a part of Christian tradition than of Jewish tradition. So just to be clear lest I offend: this is sincere curiosity.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Seems reasonably likely: the "stable" in question was actually, most likely, an overflow area for people, too. Where else are they going to go? They found a spot -- it's not like the place would be particularly LESS crowded twelve days later. . .

[kayre]

The magi show up in the Nativity scenes because we're impatient, and because they're part of the essential story even though they showed up late.

Very late, in fact-- the story itself gives clues that they may have arrived months or even years later, and they went to 'the house where they (Mary, Joseph and Jesus) were staying.' So yes, there's artistic license, and compression of the story, and a lot of folk tradition involved. All those nativity scenes probably show 3 magi, too, when the number isn't given in the gospels-- the 3 is because three gifts are named, that's all.

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

Artistic license. From what I've read, Jesus was likely around the age of 2 by the time the wise men showed up.

A LOT of Artistic License

[rob-of-unspace.livejournal.com]

It's a combination of analysis that's quite similar to the whole Talmud/Midrash. For example, three gifts, hence there must have been three wise men. Stuff gets added and moved around also to make the story easier to tell.

The names of the "three wise men" (Magi, or Zoroastrian sorcerers -- apparently a problem for both the early church and more recent translators) were not Gaius Baltar, Mel Gibson, and Casper Weinberger. Santa didn't show up at the manger and there's no evidence of a little drummer boy -- or the baby Jesus crying when the little drummer boy stopped because that meant the little bass player was next.

The poor Archbishop of Canterbury pointed this out and folks like Powerball of Powerblog have been saying nasty things about him because he stuck up for what's actually in the Bible.

In the early church, Christian apologists would say "If you don't believe my arguments, look at the lives that have been changed by knowing Jesus Christ." Now adays, we say "Please ignore the Christians and look at my arguments!"

Sigh.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Part of my answer has already been covered -- compression of the story, not sure how many actually visited, etc. The nativity scene is tradition, and sometimes we don't let the facts get in the way of the tradition :-)

Also, though, there is some symbolism involved for the figures who are part of the traditional Nativity scene -- they symbolize that Jesus came for everyone. Not just the rich or a privileged few, but everyone. The shepherds symbolize Jesus' coming to the poor as well as the rich. The wise men are present to show that Jesus came for people of all nations and social standing.

So, no, they probably weren't all there at once. It's just some symbolic artistic license.

[tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com]

The folks who've already responded have covered it very well, but I'll add that I've also seen these points used as a fairly common hook for Christmas sermons: the "wise men" weren't there, and there's no reference to how many there were (let alone names). It's very unlikely that the "stable" was the a-frame barn we often see, but quite possibly more of a cave. The innkeeper often gets condemned in retrospect for being uncaring, but given that the inn may have had more in common with a YMCA gym floor full of evacuees than a ye oldefied Hilton (especially with the census crowds) it's debatable how bad the stable really was by comparison. Etc. etc.

People invest a great deal of devotion to their traditions, many of which owe more to Currier & Ives than they do to scripture. It's become popular to shake up some of those bits of common wisdom, at least gently, as a rhetorical trick to help people be thoughtful rather than just falling into midnight service autopilot.

[foxxydancr.livejournal.com]

Yes, they showed up later. the 12 days is a convention developed to make it a part of the catholic calendar.

In my family's nativity set, the wise men and their camels always get put on the opposite side of whatever flat suurface the set is on until Jan 6, when they get moved. Of course, we also keep Jesus in the sugar bowl until christmas morning, so we're perhaps a little odd.