[extropy-chat] Religion: Subject Change! How can you Trust Anything from the Bible - Wise Maji or Not?

[BillK]

On Tue Feb 10, 2004 07:49 am Natasha Vita-More wrote:
> I just read a report from Reuters about The Christian Church
> rethinking the age-old reference to "Three Wise Men," in deference to 
> gender neutrality.
>
> Apparently there is a bit of discrepancy and the 17th Century King
> James Bible (70 million readers) made a boo-boo. "Three Wise Men" is
> now "Three Wise Maji" just in case one was a woman.
>

Urban Legends covered this in Nov 2000
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/3wisemen.asp

Matthew never ever mentioned 'three' magi (magoi in Greek), only saying
there was more than one Magus. Three was implied from the three gifts
presented. No mention that they were 'kings' either.

Matthew 2:1 tells us:
     Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod
the king, behold, there came magi from the east to Jerusalem . . .


This text is actually a bit of a problem for Xians and requires a bit of
ecclesiastical wriggling to accommodate it.

Every other use of 'magoi' in the Greek Bible has bad associations,
meaning magicians, sorcerers, etc. So they have to force a good meaning
on to this one case and claim they were something like Persian
astrologers or learned men or priests. But then they have the problem
that the Bible is none too keen on astrology or foreign priests either.

BillK