Reading the Bible Badly. Karl Allen Kuhn
away from the most exploitative of these retellings. But as noted earlier, the magi are still commonly regarded by Christians today as wise and admirable exemplars of how one finds his or her way to Jesus. The countercultural, even revolutionary, dimension of their story in Matthew, and its focus on God’s initiative in leading the magi to Jesus, is often overlooked. In other words, instead of experiencing the story as the surprising, disorienting tale which challenges our conceptions of who truly welcomes the kingdom of God—instead of experiencing the tale as Matthew likely intended—we often read it as a tale that affirms our sense of what it takes to be a believer, or perhaps the kind of believers we consider ourselves to be: wise, learned, and discerning. Here is a sampling of such readings readily found online.
The three wise men, also known as magi, were men belonging to various educated classes. Our English word magician comes from this same root. But these wise men were not magicians in the modern sense of sleight-of-hand performers. They were of noble birth, educated, wealthy, and influential. They were philosophers, the counselors of rulers, learned in all the wisdom of the ancient East. The wise men who came seeking the Christ child were not idolaters; they were upright men of integrity. They had apparently studied the Hebrew Scriptures and found there a clear transcript of truth.37
They were certainly men of great learning . . . The magi would have followed the patterns of the stars religiously. They would have also probably been very rich and held in high esteem in their own society and by people who weren’t from their country or religion. They had seen an unusual new star in the sky, and knew that it told of the birth of a special king in Israel . . . The Magi would have known about the prophesies of a special Jewish Savior (also known as the Messiah) from when the Jews had been held captive in ancient Babylon several hundred years before.38
Magoi were experts in such astral phenomena. But what about this star drew them to Jerusalem? The most plausible explanation lies in Israel’s Scriptures. As learned men who interacted with various religious literature, the magoi would have been familiar with Jewish political or messianic oracles. And one of the central political prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures is Balaam’s oracle.39
These foreigners, the first Gentiles to see the Light, recognize what Herod and the Temple priesthood cannot: the newborn Savior. The wealthy, learned, alien Magi of St. Matthew’s Gospel complement the poor, ignorant, local shepherds of St. Luke’s Gospel. Foreshadowing the universality of the Church, these Gentiles and Jews worship God Incarnate to show that salvation is offered to all men.40
A common theme in these descriptions of the magi and their devotion to Jesus is the assumption that they would have been men of great learning familiar with the Israelite Scriptures. I guess this is possible, but there is absolutely no evidence to support this contention. Indeed, there was likely a sharing of religious thought between Israelites and Persians starting around the late sixth century BCE and continuing on for at least the next hundred years. But we do not know how long such interreligious dialogue lasted or its extent, and we simply cannot validly assume (1) that it continued into the first century BCE and that (2) it was occurring among this particular group of magi. Even more telling, if it was the case that the magi were led by Israel’s Scriptures to await the birth of the messiah and rightly interpret the significance of the star, then why wouldn’t Matthew—who emphasizes that Jesus’ birth fulfills the Israelite Scriptures—have included that information?
Celebrating the Magi as Matthew Did
As I stated at the start of our discussion of the magi, when reflecting on this story American Christians do well to emphasize that Jesus offers God’s salvation to all humankind, and celebrate those who like the magi embrace Jesus with eyes and hearts of faith. But we also tend to cast the magi as characters we find admirable: Scripture-reading, prophecy-discerning, wealthy, wise men.
But such readings undercut the story’s original intent to challenge our notions of wisdom, power, and self-sufficiency. After all, it is the wise and wealthy and powerful ones in this story who recoil with fear and hatred when hearing the news about Christ. They plot to encounter Jesus on their terms. And eventually, they kill him.
The magi didn’t come to Jesus because they were wise. They came because they were led by God, and had just enough sense to keep following the star. The magi came not representing royal elite. They came because they were infantile enough to know goodness when they saw it, even if they didn’t fully comprehend yet what it was all about and the implications of their actions.
“I praise you Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children” (11:25).
What would it mean for us to truly identify with those the world finds silly, naïve, trashy, powerless, and childish? Rather than reading this story through a self-gratulatory set of lenses, as if the magi are discerning wise people just like us, what if we grasped that 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?
Remembering our Roots, and Honoring our Ancestors
When it comes to biblical interpretation, context is (nearly) everything. At least that is the case if one is interested in reading biblical passages in a way that is similar to how many of the first recipients of these texts would have heard them. I hope my discussion of Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth and Matthew’s story of the magi illustrates the importance of engaging three different contexts when it comes to reading the Bible well.
The Worlds of the Text
Many interpreters refer to these contexts as the world behind the text (social and historical contexts), the world of the text (the literary context of the surrounding work or narrative), and the world in front of the text (the context of the readers themselves). What follows is a very brief description of each. For illustration purposes, I also summarize how engaging each of these worlds may enable us to become more faithful readers of Luke 2 and Matthew 2 (and by extension, most other biblical texts).
The World Behind the Text: how our reading of the text makes sense with respect to the time and place in which it was written. What historical, political, economic, and cultural realities are reflected within the text and must be addressed in order to understand the text more fully?
Understanding what life was like in the first-century world, including grossly inequal distribution of resources, widespread poverty, Roman propaganda casting Caesar as Savior and Lord, and Israelite hopes for deliverance, helps us to discern the revolutionary character of Luke’s story and the contrast he dramatically depicts between Caesar and Jesus, between the Roman world and the Realm and rule of God.
Understanding that most Israelites in Jesus’ day would have regarded magi as silly and foolish helps us to see the ways in which Matthew’s portrayal of the magi leans on and exploits these popular conceptions in order to say something startling about the kingdom of God and what it means to be part of it.
The World of the Text: how our reading of this text fits with its immediate context, and the tendencies of the rest of the biblical work in which it appears. How does this passage or story contribute to the interests of the work as a whole?
Luke’s portrayal of Jesus’ birth builds upon Luke’s characterization of Jesus in the preceding narrative as the divine savior whose advent will upend prevailing patterns of power and right the wrong of gross inequity (recall Mary’s hymn in 1:47–55). It also further prepares us to recognize the ongoing manifestation of these themes in the narrative to follow.
Matthew’s frequent characterization of Jesus’ followers as marginalized members of society, even “infants,” and Jesus’ consistent critique of wealth, power, and those who wield them for their own selfish pursuits, reaffirms our sense that Matthew also intended to present the magi as marginalized characters who had the humility and faith to receive God’s call.
The World in Front