Epiphany and History<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Having attempted to do away with contradictions between Matthew and Luke for Christmas, Ian Paul has now offered a blog post claiming that Matthew's story\" \/>\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.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/epiphany-and-history.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Epiphany and History\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Having attempted to do away with contradictions between Matthew and Luke for Christmas, Ian Paul has now offered a blog post claiming that Matthew's story\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/epiphany-and-history.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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{"id":33002,"date":"2016-01-06T14:10:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T19:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=33002"},"modified":"2016-01-06T14:10:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T19:10:00","slug":"epiphany-and-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/01\/epiphany-and-history.html","title":{"rendered":"Epiphany and History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Having attempted to do away with contradictions between Matthew and Luke<\/a> for Christmas, Ian Paul has now offered a blog post claiming that Matthew\u2019s story of the arrival of the magi can be treated as historical<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I am not persuaded. Infancy stories featuring miracles are a common feature in ancient literature, and are consistently devoid of reliable historical information. To try to pretend that the Gospels are an exception\u00a0is not going to be persuasive without some very strong arguments. Splitting hairs about terminology does not help \u2013 sure, such stories are not strictly speaking \u201cparables,\u201d but they are symbolic in character and unhistorical. The star is a fairy-tale element, doing what no star can do, and getting many\u00a0children killed<\/a> as it behaves in this blatantly implausible manner.<\/p>\n

One does not need to make \u201cunwarranted assumptions\u201d in order to reject the story of the magi in Matthew as unhistorical. One simply needs to use the same methods that historians do in relation to all texts. That is a topic I\u2019ve wanted to blog about in relation to N. T. Wright, who has tried rewriting the rules of history in order to be able to give Jesus special treatment. There have been interesting posts on the Jesus Creed blog about Wright\u2019s\u00a0treatment of this topic<\/a>, as well as a recent book by Samuel Adams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The point of the story of the magi in the Gospel of Matthew is, of course, Jesus coming to us, and\u00a0those who should be ready not being ready while others surprisingly are<\/a>. That is why the magi are included, to make that point, and Ian ought to acknowledge that they are there to be challenging, to make Jewish readers feel embarrassed for being less ready for the arrival of the Messiah than these pagan astrologers were.<\/p>\n

This cartoon that Richard Hall shared <\/a>makes the point\u00a0in a comical fashion:<\/p>\n

$\"This$ <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"