pagan prophecy?

[didymus]

According to my NIV Bible dictionary by Zondervan it states that the magi were originally a religious caste among the persians. Their devotion to astrology, divination and the interpretation of dreams led to an extension in the meaning of the word, and by 1st century bc the terms "magi" and "chaldeans" were applied generally to fortune tellers and their exponents of esoteric religious cultsthroughout the mediterranean world.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by didymus

Getting back to pagan prophecy. I haven;\t read all the posts but has anyone mentioned the three wisemen who supposedly went to see Jesus when he was born. They were from the east, possibly persian zoroastrians?

I'm not saying they were pagan because they were zoroastrian, as one pointed out ,pagan originally referred to country folk. This definition has changed and some think of pagans as anyone who dabbles in what some may see as occultish or mystic.

What is more mystic and even occultish than christianity? Before you jump on me look up the word. Better yet I'll do it for you.

occult:1> not revealed, secret 2. abstruse, mysterious 3>of or relating to supernatural agencies, their effects or knowledge of them.

Sounds like christianity to me. I mean this in a good way.

Hello Did,

Even most of the non-religious (or non-Christian) among us recognize the symbolism of the nativity scene: it depicts the biblical account of three wise men from the east who rode atop camels and followed a star to Bethlehem, bearing gifts for the newborn Christ child who lay in a manger.


The truth is, the Bible contains virtually none of these details. They have all been added over the years from sources outside the Bible.

Mathew 2:1 tells us:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem . . .

That's it. Matthew doesn't say how many wise men came from the east, doesn't mention their names, and doesn't provide any details about how they made their journey.


It has generally been assumed that the wise men (or magi) were three in number because Matthew 2:11 makes mention of three gifts: " . . . they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh." The number of wise men is not specified in the Bible, however, and some Eastern religions have claimed up to twelve of them made the journey to Bethlehem. The names of the wise men, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, do not come from the Bible and did not appear in Christian literature until over five hundred years after the birth of Jesus. Nothing in the Bible says the wise men rode camels (or any other animal); they may have made their journey from the east on foot for all we know. And despite the familiar lyrics of the Christmas carol "We Three Kings," no biblical source depicts the three wise men as kings. (They were most likely learned men, perhaps astrologers.)

However many wise men there were, and however they got to Bethlehem, the Bible tells us they arrived just after the birth and found the baby Jesus in a manger, right?

Not quite. Matthew 2:11 states:

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him . . .

The wise men came "into the house," not the stable, and they saw a "young child," not a newborn. This passage indicates that the wise men didn't arrive until quite some time after Jesus' birth. (According to Luke 2, it was shepherds, not wise men, who visited the infant Jesus in the manger.)
To sum up: we know from the Bible that wise men came from the east, that they followed a star to Bethlehem to find the Christ child, and that they brought him gold, and frankincense and myrrh. We must look to sources external to the Bible to find the origins of any of the other familiar details, however.

Neither their names nor their gender nor their number are given: the Greek text of Matthew refers to them merely as μαγοι απο ανατολων, "Magi from the East". μαγοι should probably be interpreted as Persian-style (Zoroastrian) seers, philosophers, astrologers, and maybe even strictly as members of the sect of Magi (see the many references throughout Pliny, for example). Greek grammar makes it not inconceivable that one or more of them may have been women, while the traditional reference to "three" seems to derive from the number of gifts mentioned in the Gospel.

v/r

Q

[Sacredstar]

Dear Didymus

You might find this website interesting it is written by a Christian Pastor who discovered after seven years of intense study he was not preaching the truth.

http://jesusastrotheology.netfirms.com

being love

Kim xx

[Virtual_Cliff]

Gee wizz SS, doesn't this guy (Craig Lyons) ever waffle?! I'm glad I didn't recommend him. Also he doesn't know "who" from "whom" - unexpected in a "Christian pastor". And why does he say his name is Craig Lyons, but his email address is Ben something? All seems a bit of a wind-up. Not that there might not be something in what he says - if he ever got around to saying it, that is.

[Sacredstar]

no idea VC I fell upon it purely by chance

glad you have a sense of humour

hugs

Kim xx

[didymus]

Acts 1:-26 ; Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Mathias, so he was added to the 11 apostles.

For those that didn't read it in the Bible. This was how the 11 apostles chose their replacement for Judas. As far as I can tell this was a way of divination and decision making. It involved throwing stones or some other object on the ground and seeing how it fell. Very much like rolling dice.

[Sacredstar]

Dear Didymus

Very interesting......

Also found a passage in the NIV where Jesus and the disciples went to the Mountain of Divination.

being love

Kim xx

[didymus]

yes indeed

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by Sacredstar

Dear Didymus

Very interesting......

Also found a passage in the NIV where Jesus and the disciples went to the Mountain of Divination.

being love

Kim xx

it was not the mountain of diby daby, it was escape to witch mountain.
like i said from the very start, this thread is in the wrong forum.
so i guess the bible believers are now allowed into other forums asking questions if they have heard of the prophecy and the life of Jesus from the New Testament.


5Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD.6You have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob. They are full of superstitions from the East; they practice divination like the Philistines and clasp hands with pagans.7Their land is full of silver and gold; there is no end to their treasures. Their land is full of horses; there is no end to their chariots.8Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.9So man will be brought low and mankind humbled--do not forgive them.10Go into the rocks, hide in the ground from dread of the LORD and the splendor of his majesty!11The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the pride of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.

[didymus]

The Magi are biblical, the mountain of divination is biblical and the casting of lots is found in the bible in post Jesus era. How is it the wrong thread?

[Basstian]

Acts 16:16 And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:
Acts 16:17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation.
Acts 16:18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.

This seems to be Biblical also
There is a line that can be crossed

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by Bandit

like i said from the very start, this thread is in the wrong forum.

I was sort of hoping this discussion could focus on why the Judaic prophecies were so important to Christianity, and why it would be difficult for any alleged prophecy outside of Judaism to have any real meaning within Christianity.

Quahom1 and juantoo3 - if you feel that this thread has moved too much into issues of pagan belief systems, then feel free to move it.

[didymus]

My answer is not a popular one Brian. I believe that christians have been taught that anything outside of the bible is evil or not of God. This is the highest crime against God in my opinion.

To quote a famous Jewish biblical scholar, "However, as the vast majority of scholars dealing with the subject happened to be Christian churchmen, they explicitly or implicitly introduced a qualitative distinction between new testament and the non biblical jewish writings. For them jewish literature formed the background against which they made the new testament stand out in all its presumed superiority and grandeur. Or else they saw the gospel as the mistress and the jewish books as servants and auxilaries, allowed to speak only when spoken to: the agenda of the inquiry was set by the mistress herself and in her own interest."

This is one of the major problems I see , that being to give the jewish writings a voice. Selected parts of the Tanach (OT) are used to bolster the fulfillment of Christ and the prophecies and when other sections are pointed out that may seem to contradict or show God and his plan in a different light they are dismissed abruptly. The fact of the matter ( and this is fact not speculation) is that most all of the prohecies of christ in the OT were changed to fit christian agendas. Tenses were changed from present to future and vice versa and some words were completely mistranslated. The biggest example I know of is in Isaiah when it was said a virgin would give birth. The hebrew read a young woman, not a virgin. Virgin was put in there afterwords.

[Quahom1]

Hi. The thread was moved to Belief and Spirituality, because the general content of the posts tend to vary, and as such it is considered more appropriate in this area of the forum.

v/r

Q