Or, "How the Magi knew the Gospel "
But you do have to look for it! It helps to be a wise man (Magus) or to have some useful software, somebody else's basic research , a helpful website, and a firm belief in the truth of God's Word.
It also helps to avoid any form of Astrology. Looking for a star that exhibits unstarlike behaviour is illogical. Divination of any form, including astrology, is clearly forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:9 - 14 . All attempts to date the birth using astrology are doomed to failure as they disobey the Word of God.
The useful software is Mr Scott Lee's Calendar conversion software. It can be seen at http://www.rosettacalendar.com/ or a Mac version used to be available from Pandacorner.com but it doesn't seem to be anymore. This is a pity as it was very easy to use.
The research is Professor H.W. Hoehner's excellent book "Chronological aspects of the Life of Christ". He's done all the heavy lifting, as it were.
The helpful website is devoted to the Babylonian (360 day) Calendar and explains a great deal about the numbers in Daniel and other prophetic aspects of that calendar.
The belief in God's word was that John tells us the season of Christ's birth in the Prologue to the gospel.
The Gospel of John says, "And the Word became flesh and pitched His tent (a literal translation of he Greek word) among us..." which is to say 'Tabernacled' . John 1:14
Daniel tells us when the Messiah will be cut off. You can read the prophecy here.
Let's be honest. Everyone comes up with slightly different answers for the date predicted. They do all come down around 30 - 33 AD. Professor Hoehner has looked at all the arguments and settles on AD33. He apparently uses the Julian calendar rather than the later and modern Gregorian calendar. I have used the modern Gregorian equivalents for the sake of clarity.
He uses a start date of Nisan 444BC. He calculates the 69 weeks of years using the 360 day calendar and concludes that the entry into Jerusalem took place on Nisan 10 AD 33. By historical argument he chooses a birthdate of 5BC, but for some reason sticks with mid-December, even though all scholars in this field know that this was fixed by decree of the Emperor Augustus and not for scholastic or Biblical reasons
If we decide that Jesus was born at Tabernacles, then, using the software, we get a date of Tishri 15, Saturday September 14th 5BC.
I also calculated the date of the Resurrection. It was then I made my discovery.
(What follows was cut and pasted from a Word document of mine. I don't know enough about HTML to correct the weirdness in the resultant formatting. It looks OK in Compose. Sorry)
The
missing piece.
We are now able to
discover a new prophetic and biblical insight.
33
AD
|
3793
|
Friday April 1
|
Sunday April 3
|
1733206
|
5
BC
|
3757
|
Saturday September 14
|
1719856
|
From Birth to Resurrection there are (1733206
– 1719856) days, which is a period of exactly
13,350
days!
I remember looking at my aging Mac and thinking," I know that number".
Back to Daniel.
Students of Biblical
prophecy will realise at once the significance of that number. For any others
unfamiliar with the prophetic scriptures, it is ten times the number found in
Daniel 12:12. It is, perhaps, inevitable that the Birthday of the Messiah is
hidden in the book of Daniel. It is Daniel who told us when to expect the
rejection of the Messiah.
The significance of this number.
“Blessed is he who waits and comes to the thousand three
hundred and thirty five days”. Daniel 12:12. R. S.V.
Although the obvious
import of this verse is about those who survive the Tribulation, its link with
what we have discovered leads to me to conclude that there is another message
encoded in it. I do not mean some sort of Drosnin-style Bible
code, but rather a coded phrase that means something else to the right reader.
Rather like the sort of thing spies sometimes use.
The phrase “Blessed
is he” is associated with the Messiah in many of its occurrences in Scripture.
The most well known being “Baruch ha ba B’Shem Adonai - Blessed is He who comes
in the Name of the Lord.” (Matthew 23:39). Jesus here is tying the phrase to
His return.
Currently, the Lord
is waiting as He performs His High Priestly ministry and waits for Israel to call
Him back. It is not stretching the point to observe that Jesus is also One who
waits and comes. Other translations of this verse use the word “faithful”
instead of “waits”. This can hardly be said to exclude Jesus!
If this is correct, why
did the Magi multiply 1335 by 10? It could simply be that 1335 represents a
blessed person, so a divinely blessed person would be 13350. However, there is another
reason for them using this number.
The Babylonian calendar.
The Babylonians, and
hence Daniel and the Magi, used a calendar of 360 days. This was not wildly
inaccurate if used properly. It has a precise mathematical relationship to our
solar (Gregorian) calendar of 356 days, based on a solar year of 365.24 days (see
http://www.360calendar.com).
A generation of forty
solar years has 40 x 365.24 days = 14,609.6 days. It has 13,350 + 1,260 days =
14,610 days. These facts would be known to the Babylonians, as they were
accurate astrologers. Daniel’s verse would scream at them to use the multiple
of 1335.
Also, Daniel 12:7 A
time, two times and half a time = 3 1/2 years. A Babylonian year of 360 days x
3 1/2 = 1260 days
There are other ways
of generating these numbers from the relationship between the calendars. There
are also some interesting symbolic relationships to do with Biblical Numerics
that are outside the scope of this paper. Amongst them, the fact that Jesus was
thirty-seven years old (Babylonian) and in His thirty-seventh year (36 solar)
when He was crucified.
And back to the Feasts…
Passover (Pesach) is
the Feast of the Lord about deliverance. That is what an anointed one
(Messiah/Christ) is supposed to do. The Magi did not make the mistake that the
Jews were to make. The people welcomed Jesus as the Son of David, the coming
King who would remain with them (Sukkot/Tabernacles). The palm branches
declared that they saw it as Tabernacles.
Once the Magi had
determined the year of Crucifixion by use of the sixty–nine weeks (see above)
they would be led almost to Passover.
Counting backwards, using the 13350 days, they would come almost to Sukkot, according to Hoehner and Nehemiah 2:1. The significance of that would not escape
them. There were still Jews in Babylon
at that time. Correcting the start date and counting forwards from Sukkot, using the 13350 days, they
would come to the Feast of the First Fruits.
They knew these
verses were about the end times and would tie them in with The Ancient of Days
and the Son of Man in Daniel 7: 13 ff. They knew that this Person would wait and then come. They knew the significance of the Feasts or
could consult with Jewish sages to that effect. Interestingly, they did not
think to ask where He would be born until they reached Jerusalem.
Nobody is perfect, and that assumption on their part led to the deaths
of innocents. So often, it is what we think
we know that causes the problems.
At this point, they had the gospel in a
nutshell.
The Messiah is born
at the time of God’s dwelling with His people. He is cut off at the time of
deliverance, but the numbers carry on to the day when there is a pledge of
future harvest and the first-fruits are given to God. The story clearly is not
finished. That which has been buried and harvested is now given to God. To the
ancient mind, and especially the Persian mind, this would speak of Resurrection
and the Messiah returning to God. There He would wait until the fulfilment of
other prophecies and then return.
All this they knew
without the New Testament and without much of the Old Testament. They had the
Book of Daniel and the numbers, plus whatever else they gleaned from Jews in Babylon. They knew He was
the Saviour and they came to worship Him because they believed the Word of God.
God gave them a sign
to guide them. I still think the star was supernatural, but He led them, as He
led Abraham, from Chaldea to the Promised Land, from Babylon to Jerusalem and
from darkness to the One Eternal Light.
And so the Magi brought
Gold for the King, Myrrh for His death and Frankincense to burn in His Temple. Frankincense
declares the risen and Divine Lord.
Unlike any of His chosen disciples, they believed that He would rise
again. If they had lived that long they would have been waiting outside the
Tomb. However, they will rise to greet the King they knew would return.
They knew…and so
would every sage, pagan or Jewish, who studied the book of Daniel. The lives of
the Magi bore witness to their faith as they returned home another (and more
dangerous) way.
The fact that this
has been revealed in these latter days is in itself significant… (Daniel 12:4)
Some Greeks.
One thing was left
puzzling me. Surely, if one knew all that I believe the Magi did know, why not
turn up for the Resurrection as well as the Birth? I know that I would, or if I
could not make the journey, I would send someone. Any seriously enquiring mind
would be compelled to do something.
There are plenty of
reasons why this might not happen. They could have been too old, they could
have died, the next generation might not be interested; and, of course, the
last time they turned up it led to a massacre. This time they would be dealing
with an empire and not just Herod. If you were to turn up, discretion would be
imperative. But what if they did...?
What follows is just
speculation, but it might explain a rather abrupt tangent that Jesus seems to
go off on.
In John 12, we learn
of some Greeks who wished to see Jesus. It should be noted that virtually every
Gentile is referred to as a Greek. The words are almost synonymous. They seek
an introduction via Philip and Andrew. In verse 12, Jesus answers ‘them’. Is
this just Philip and Andrew or does it include our Greeks?
Jesus begins by
saying that hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. If our Greeks
were the Magi or their successors, this statement would pregnant with meaning.
They are familiar with the book of Daniel and ‘Son of Man’ originates there,
they have come because of the timings revealed in Daniel; the sub-text is ‘I am
the One you seek and you are on time’.
Then Jesus says
something rather odd. He is going to be raised at the Feast of First-Fruits, but
that is the barley harvest. Jesus starts talking about wheat. The first-fruits
of the wheat harvest belong at Shavuot/Pentecost. He appears to be confirming
the Resurrection but He is also turning the spotlight onto His disciples. He
opens the possibility of resurrection, and its attendant cost, to all His
disciples. He is also looking to the fruit of his sacrifice.
The message to our putative
Magi is that the story does not end when the numbers run out. There is a much
bigger picture, there are other prophecies to be fulfilled and you, too, can be
a part of it. He then prays and God answers Him from Heaven. Jesus then talks
of the manner of His death and urges all who are listening to believe in the
light that they may become sons of light. We have gone full circle and are
right back at Chanukah. It is not Jesus who is to be born. His Work is nearly
done. Their work, and ours, was about to begin.
Were they the Magi –
or just some Greeks? Other Gentiles had approached Jesus without this manner of
reaction. Was Jesus using them to make a point – or did He know whom they were?
I would have wanted to be there if had been one of the Magi. It seems to me fitting
that when their journey finally reaches its end, they discover that they are
about to start on a much greater one; a journey whose destination is Eternal.
Objections
You can attack every part individually, but I have put them together like a jig-saw puzzle and discovered a new piece that fits the facts. It's the number you have to explain. Any other attack is a waste of time.
‘Coincidence
is the last refuge of the uninspired’, Numb3rs Series
2.
