cellio | question about twelfth night

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.

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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.

I think that this captures the thread -- "Easier to tell." Lots of oral tradition, as you know, compresses and changes so that things are easier to tell and understand.

All through my Christian education I heard folks analyze this stuff by discussing the fact that Luke, where this story is most clearly told, wasn't an actual witness to any of Jesus' life, and gathered up stories and narratives and put them together into a mellifluous story.

Curious, I went and looked up "Flight into Egypt," because in the Baptist tradition I grew up in the little family fled immediately after the visit. I found an interesting discussion (with moderately OK sources) in Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_into_Egypt

The various time-lines associated with the Roman rulers helps pin lots of potential realities down; they also discuss possible motives the writers of the 4 gospels had in what they discussed, including fulfilling a prophecy by Hosea about calling Jesus, like Moses, out of Egypt.

"Easier to tell" makes a lot of sense to me. What's more important in spreading a new religion, literal accuracy or conveying the Big Ideas?

(This might be why I so often got in trouble in Sunday school; a lot of my questions began "if it says X, then...".)

Probably better than my, "But, that doesn't make sense..."

Thanks for bringing a smile to my face. ("Little bass player", eh? :-) )

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!"

You need both arguments and anecdotal evidence, at some level.

Things are more complicated now; there are so many bad examples who can get the public's attention. Fortunately we all know that not everyone claiming to be a Christian is a good exemplar; unfortunately, it can be hard for any community to police its extremists sometimes. (This is not a problem unique to your religion, of course.)

question about twelfth night

A LOT of Artistic License

Re: A LOT of Artistic License

Re: A LOT of Artistic License

Re: A LOT of Artistic License

Re: A LOT of Artistic License

Re: A LOT of Artistic License