How Jesus’s birth got the attention of the powerful… and the infamous.
Matthew 2.1-18.
Both Mešíakh/“Messiah” and Hrístos/“Christ” mean king.
It’s a fact most Christians forget. Either we translate these words literally and assume they only mean anointed, or we mix ’em up with the meaning of “Jesus” and figure they mean savior. We treat Christ like Jesus’s surname, and forget it’s his title.
And we forget you couldn’t just wander around ancient Israel and call yourself Messiah or Christ. There were other people who laid claim to that title. Powerful people. Homicidal people. Like Herod the Great, who was only “great” because of all his building projects; as a human being Herod was a monster. Emperor Augustus used to joke he’d rather be Herod’s pig than his son. Herod did execute two of his sons, and since Edomites didn’t eat pork, Augustus’s comment was quite apt.
How’d baby Jesus get on Herod’s bad side? Well, you might know parts of the story, and if you don’t I’m gonna analyze the story in some degree. It begins with some mágoi/“Zoroastrians.” Or as the KJV calls them, “wise men.” Contrary to the Christmas carols, these weren’t kings.
- Matthew 2.1-3 KWL
- 1 When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Judea, in the days of King Herod,
- look: Zoroastrians came to Jerusalem from the east.
- 2 The Zoroastrians were saying, “Where’s the newborn king of Judea?—
- we saw his star in the east, and came to bow before him.”
- 3 Hearing this, King Herod was agitated, and all Judea with him.
Mágos is Greek for maguš, the old Persian term for Zoroastrian, a follower of the 11th century BC Avestan prophet Zarathustra (Greek Zoroaster). In English this became magus, plural magi.
Problem is, when people look up magi, they have to navigate through ancient Greek beliefs about Zoroastrians… and the Greeks didn’t know squat. Yeah, they had books about Zarathustra and his followers and what they believed and taught. But all of it was based on rumor and conjecture. Zo- in Greek means “life,” and astír means “star,” so they leapt to the conclusion Zoroastrians worshiped stars, and were Babylonian (not Persian) astrologers and magicians. Even the early Christian Fathers repeated these myths. Hence our own word magic comes from magi.
Like Christians and Jews, Zoroastrians are monotheists. They worship Ahura/“Supreme Being,” and he’s mazda/“wise.” They seek wisdom, so “wise men” isn’t a bad description for ’em. Ahura Mazda created the universe and truth. He’s opposed by the Angra Mainyu/“the destructive principle” which produces the chaos and lies in the universe. (Some folks assume this is another, equally powerful god to Ahura Mazda, but he’s not Ahura’s equal.) Ahura’s Spenta Mainyu/“generous principle,” sort of a holy spirit through whom he interacts with the universe, fights the Angra Mainyu. At the End, Ahura Mazda will send a savior, the Sayoshyant, born of a virgin; the dead will be resurrected, and Angra Mainyu will be destroyed.
Notice a few similarities between Zoroastrianism and Christianity? Some pretty significant differences too—so no, they’re not Christians who are just using Avestan words for everything. Still, the matching beliefs make a lot of scholars wonder just how much Zoroastrianism and Judaism interacted with one another—even influenced one another—when the Jews were exiled to Babylon in the sixth century BC. ’Cause both Nabú-kudúrri-usúr of Babylon (KJV “Nebuchadnezzar”) and Kuruš 2 of Persia (KJV “Cyrus”) had Zoroastrians among their wise men.