Reading the Bible Badly. Karl Allen Kuhn

Reading the Bible Badly - Karl Allen Kuhn


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moved from an Israelite to Gentile cultural context, those hearing it simply assumed that magi were wise. This interpretive tendency is still alive and well among American Christians today. Yet before discussing how the magi are most often viewed in our American context, it may be illuminating to explore how over the centuries Christians have told the magi story differently from how it is told by Matthew. In his book, The Journey of the Magi: Meanings in History of a Christian Story, Richard Trexler traces the various forms of the magi story as they appear in Christian literature and art from the opening centuries of Christianity until the beginning of the modern age. As we might expect, the story—and the magi themselves—have been presented in a number of different ways.

      Early Christians of means often associated themselves with the magi in burial art adorning their tombs. A prominent motif in these settings was the generous gift-giving of the wealthy and wise magi and their subsequent reception of Christ’s salvation. Presumably, the wealthy Christians interred in the tombs displayed this depiction of the magi to emphasize their own wise and generous giving to Christ’s church and expectation of salvation. As Trexler summarizes,

      Later, after Constantine’s adoption of Christianity as one of the unifying forces of his empire, a new motif was added to the portrayal of the magi. Funeral art and other sources depict the magi as legates or client kings submitting themselves to the authority of Jesus. In some of these depictions, the magi seem to represent the devotion and submission of the Roman emperors and leaders to Jesus and the church. Others associate the authority of Roman and later Byzantine emperors with that of Jesus. In these scenes, the image or example of the magi is used to depict the powers of the world presenting themselves to Christ and to the Christian emperor. Some depict the magi as members of Jesus’ royal court, as the child Jesus sits on a throne and receives the homage of foreign kings and the offerings of the nations. In both cases, the magi, Trexler points out, function as figures that legitimate not only the worship of Jesus, but also the authority of the emperor and empire, and their reception of tribute!

      Later, the characters of the magi would be used to promote and justify the church’s attempts to reclaim Jerusalem in the first of the crusades. Trexler writes,

      By still other writers and artists, the magi were cast as representative of humankind in general. Often, but not exclusively depicted as three in number (sometimes as many as twelve), the magi represented men in different stages of life, men of different dispositions, or different Gentile races or regions of the world.

      Reading the Story through Elite-Shaped Lenses

      The way in which the magi have been cast by Christian artists and thinkers throughout these centuries has been variable. But the surviving depictions reviewed by Trexler overlook a critical component of Matthew’s portrayal of the magi: their childlike simplicity that challenges the prevailing notions of wisdom, power, and access to God. Instead, the magi are frequently associated with elite gift-giving, faithful royalty, or submission to royalty. These depictions reflect a retelling of the magi story by the elite in promotion of elite values and the power of the state and church.

      The Magi as Colonized Supplicants

      Once established in a region of the new world, the colonizing Spaniards held a ceremony Trexler terms the “feast of the magi,” and compelled their new subjects to play along. This was a ritualized drama in which natives representing different communities dressed as magi and prostrated themselves before and offered gifts of their land not only to Jesus, but to their colonizing conquerors in exchange for the “salvation” they had received from their new lords.

      Now, finally, the magi are portrayed by the elite in ways that have some semblance to their appearance in Matthew! They are childlike! But this is a far cry from the childlikeness that Matthew had in mind.

      Tragically, the native Americans forced to play the role of the magi in these propagandizing spectacles actually had more in common with the slaughtered children of Matthew 2. These colonizing leaders and missionaries not only radically reconfigured Matthew’s portrayal of the magi, they themselves—through exploitation, enslavement, and disease—took on the role of Herod.

      Our Magi Stories Today

      Allow me to restate the summary of the magi story as read within the context of Matthew’s narrative I provided above:

      In short, through this story and others to follow, Matthew is concerned to tell us that those whom the world often finds silly, naïve, trashy, powerless, and childish are more likely to open their hearts and minds to Christ. The saving reign of God makes little headway among those who hoard their riches, who seek to preserve their privileged positions, who celebrate their status at the expense of others, who so trust in their own manner of “wisdom” that they are blind to the way of blessing God is making known in plain sight before them. The kingdom of heaven comes to those who set the lies of this world aside, and rest their hearts in the truth and love of God made known in Emmanuel.

      This summary, of course, reflects a very different understanding of the story of the magi than we see reflected in our history. Throughout the centuries, the story of the magi has often been framed in self-congratulatory and self-serving ways that reflect elite objectives: recognition by God and others for their generous patronage, maintenance of elite power, promotion of the crusades and later colonization, and subjugation of native peoples.

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