{"id":1287,"date":"2010-12-11T14:44:17","date_gmt":"2010-12-11T14:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/magical-magi-scot-mcknights-take.html"},"modified":"2010-12-11T14:44:17","modified_gmt":"2010-12-11T14:44:17","slug":"magical-magi-scot-mcknights-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/magical-magi-scot-mcknights-take.html","title":{"rendered":"Magical Magi? Scot McKnight’s Take"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s some discussion now about Brent Landau’s Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men’s Journey to Bethlehem<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, a new and previously inaccessible translation of a (Syriac) Christian fictional, fantastical text about the magi. Patheos<\/strong><\/a> is hosting a commons on this very book. Since we know so little about the magi, they have become the source of imagination.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And
\nLandau is right to point out that much of what people think comes from
\nChristian legends and art. Not much can be traced back to the Revelation of the Magi<\/em>,
\nbut his point is so important: we have absorbed so many Christian
\ntraditions that fill in details that simply aren’t found in the text.<\/p>\n

This
\nfictional tale, which I found to be a fascinating and fun read, is
\nabsorbed with light and with the magi’s star and with the East and a
\nplace called Shir. It also concerns the history of the magi — a group
\nthat descends from the story of Seth in Genesis — though the story
\nalmost jumps from Seth to the magi in Shir. And it’s a story of a
\nmountain and a cave, a cave like the one in Bethlehem where Jesus was
\nborn. It is a story of promise that they would someday see a star and
\nthat star would lead them to Bethlehem. It’s quite fantastical and fun.<\/p>\n

There
\nare lots of stories like this in the collection of Christian writings,
\nmany of them as fantastical as this one. What they tell us is the
\ntheology and piety and practices of all sorts of Christians.<\/span><\/p>\n

Landau,
\nin my opinion, speculates on the date and seems intent on getting this
\nbook as early in dating as possible. I read his argument closely, and a
\nbook like this is not as detailed as Landau, who has specialized in The Revelation of the Magi<\/em>,
\nbut I was simply not convinced. Postulating connections and redactions
\nbetween obscure texts, building one possibility upon another, does not
\nincrease confidence or probability. Still, the dating of the text —
\nwhich he locates about the 5th Century but perhaps as early as the late
\n2d or early 3d Century — is not critical to anything Landau argues. I
\nsee his early dating, and some would locate it in the 8th Century, as a
\npossibility.<\/p>\n

A notable feature of this text is that the name
\n“Jesus Christ” is not found in the revelations of the magi themselves.
\nThat is, the stories in this text don’t call the obvious subject — and
\nno one questions whether this text is about Jesus Christ — “Jesus
\nChrist.” Instead, one metaphor after another is used: Jesus is the light
\nmostly.  But there are sections of this text that are virtual downloads
\nof biblical theology and early Christology about Jesus as the Son of
\nthe Father, as the divine-human, as incarnate, as the baby of Mary … it
\ngoes on and on and on.<\/p>\n

But a point must be made: actually “Jesus
\nChrist” is found twice, once early and once near the end, but Landau
\nproposes both as interpolations. Why? Because that name is (1) not found
\nany where else in the revelations, and (2) because it is found
\nthroughout the interpolation of the Thomas stuff at the end of the
\ndocument. OK, this is reasonable but hardly demonstrable at a compelling
\nlevel. Yes, I agree, the names here are unusual but interpolation is
\nmuch harder to prove.<\/p>\n

Landau makes much of this absence of “Jesus Christ.” He finds this indicative of a kind of early religious pluralism.<\/p>\n

\n

Instead
\nof seeing non-Christian religions as products of human vanity or
\ndemonic inspiration, as most ancient Christians did, the Revelation of the Magi<\/em> apparently believes that having an experience of Christ’s presence <\/em>is much more important than being a Christian<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He draws this conclusion from the absence of the name Jesus Christ in the heart of this book.<\/p>\n

Since
\nLandau brought this point up in his introduction, I looked for this
\ntheme in the book and what I found was a very strong sense of election —
\nthe magi are a chosen people of God — and God’s sovereignty and a very
\ntraditional sense of gospel and salvation through the cross. Frankly, I
\nfind his theory unwarranted: What I find is a text that is powerfully
\nchristocentric and that salvation comes through him and I find no
\npresence of sanctifying the religions of others. I just don’t know where
\nhe finds non-Christian religions. The religion of the magi can hardly
\nbe seen as anything but robustly orthodox Christianity, even if
\nexpressed in some peculiar forms. They call Jesus everything but Jesus
\nChrist, and they call him every name in the Book.<\/p>\n

One example from
\nhis text. Chp 14 is entitled “The Magi realize Christ’s polymorphism”
\nby Landau. Polymorphism is sketched in the note, but he clearly sees
\nthis connected to this theme quoted above. The oddity of this though is
\nthat the so-called “polymorphisms” are nothing less than a sketch of the
\ngospel story: an infant, then a youth, then a human being, then a cross
\nand a person of light on it, then down into Sheol, then [assuming
\nresurrection] ascended into glory … that’s the Story of the gospel in
\nthe early church. Landau casually observes this but makes nothing of it;
\nI would make something of it: the polymporphism of this book is the
\nsuccessive stages in the life of the one who gave himself for the
\nsalvation of the world.<\/p>\n

So, where are we? This is an interesting
\nbook, as interesting as some of the odd books in the Dead Sea Serolls
\nfor understanding Judaism, as interesting as some of the Gospel
\napocrypha for understanding odd groups in earliest Christianity … but I
\ndon’t find this book indicative of a kind of religious pluralism.<\/p>\n

One
\ntheme in this book that Landau avoids but I can’t: the text is at times
\novertly misogynistic. The intensity of blame on Eve in the reflections
\nof Adam in the early chapters of this text is too strong to ignore.
\nMaybe I missed observations of his in this regard, but I would ask him
\nwhy not make more of this theme?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s some discussion now about Brent Landau’s Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men’s Journey to Bethlehem, a new and previously inaccessible translation of a (Syriac) Christian fictional, fantastical text about the magi. Patheos is hosting a commons on this very book. Since we know so little about the magi, they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nMagical Magi? Scot McKnight's Take - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/12\/magical-magi-scot-mcknights-take.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Magical Magi? Scot McKnight's Take - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There’s some discussion now about Brent Landau’s Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men’s Journey to Bethlehem, a new and previously inaccessible translation of a (Syriac) Christian fictional, fantastical text about the magi. Patheos is hosting a commons on this very book. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}