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Archaeologist Brian Windle asserted that the learned trifecta were actually priests or astrologers from an ancient Middle Eastern Kingdom called Nabatea.
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They’re more than just some plastic figurines in your mall manger scene.
A researcher is disputing the details in the Christmas origin story, claiming that the three wismen might not have been a trio of kings from the East at all.
In a viral YouTube video, posted to the channel “Associates for Biblical Research,” archaeologist Brian Windle asserted that the erudite trifecta were actually priests or astrologers from an ancient Middle Eastern Kingdom called Nabataea, originally reported on by the Daily Mail.
He dismissed some of the usual suspects regarding the three wisemen or Magi, who supposedly followed a star to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Windle noted that the Bible never named them or verified that there were three — just three gifts — claiming that their King status and gifts were anachronisms added later through Christian stories.
The scientists also disputed popular theories that they were Babylonian astrologers or Persian priests because no Babylonian or Persian empires existed at the time of Christ’s birth between 6 and 4 BC.
Windle explained in the YouTube segment that the clues could lie in the etymological term magi, specifically its use at the time that Matthew the Apostle was writing his gospel.
By the time of the New Testament era, per Windle, the term became so reductive that it encompassed all magicians of any kind. He noted how early Christian missionaries Paul and Barnabas encountered magi in the New Testament book of Acts.
“It seems that at some point we went from an ethnic designation to a group of priests to this group of magicians,” the expert said.
Previous scholars had posited that the magi came from regions ancient Babylon and Persia that were under Parthian control when Christ was born, thereby satisfying the biblical criteria that they came “from the east.”
He postulated that perhaps the Parthian king, Phraates IV (ca. 37-2 BC), who was in charge when Christ was born, dispatched Magi to honor the newborn messiah upon learning of the divine sign.
However, Windle believed that there was another better candidate for their origins — Nabataean wise men from the courts of King Aretas IV (ca. 9 BC – AD 40).
He cited “six lines of evidence” supporting this theory, notably the fact that the independent empire comprised regions ranging from Jordan to modern-day Saudi Arabia, meeting the criteria that the wisemen were of Eastern provenance as the scripture suggests.
Furthermore, the mother of King Herod the Great — who tried to kill Jesus — was Nabataean and the Nabateans traveled great distances, suggesting that they were well-versed in astrology.
A new star would’ve certainly piqued their interest, Windle declared.
English (US)