Eloise Horsfield
By Eloise Horsfield
THE Pope has caused outcry after claiming in a new book that the Three Wise Men came from Andalucia – and not the Far East as previously thought.
In his tome Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, Pope Benedict XVI claims the gift-bearing trio came from Tarsis – or Tartessosa – a kingdom that historians place somewhere between the provinces of Huelva, Cadiz and Sevilla.
Using sacred texts by Matthew the Evangelist and the Prophet Isaiah to back up his statement, the Pope also said there were no donkeys, no camels used to carry the kings – nor any oxen in the manger when Jesus was born.
“In the gospels there is no mention of animals,” he writes, adding that the presence of cattle was probably invented.
Nativity-scene organisers across Spain have been left speechless by the claims, with many wondering what on earth to do with the props – and sometimes live animals – they use to decorate their belen displays every year.
The Pope however said nativity scenes should not ‘give up’ these elements because ‘tradition is here to stay’.
That just about sums up the Catholic Church, and religion in general. They make it up as they go along…
If the Teutonic knights had’nt deliberately burnt down the irreplaceable libraries in Constantinople because they expected to be paid for fighting for Jesus (who if he really existed should be called Josiah), then we would have original copies of the Greek invented fairy tale to guide the little Swabian CEO in his literary efforts.
Only two out of the four gospels mention the nativity, and even they do not agree on the story. All religions have their “fairy story” element to go alongside the heavy philosophy, and this is a way of starting children along the path of believing in what they are told by adults.
saw your note on 3 wise guys and wanted to draw your attention to this site, where there is a story called 3 Wise Women of Bethlehem: A Classic Retelling of the Birthing of Jesus
Might enjoy it
“http://www.sophiasirius.net”
Have a good holiday
Patrick D.
To suggest that the Catholic Church “makes it up as it goes along” shows an ignorance of mind boggling proportions. I suggest you read the three books written by the present Pope, together with his encyclicals, try to overcome the prejudices of the time and place to which you happen to belong, and then make a more balanced, informed point.
In response to PM’s point, maybe it is just Christ came for all. Children and adults, the wise and the simple.
To Stewart, no serious historian doubts the existance of Jesus of Nazareth.
Are there any historical records on the star they followed?
If the star was in the East they they would have come from the West.
There are various theories. However, the point is that the universe is rational because it is the result of the creative power of the Word, the logos, made incarnate in Bethlehem. This is not just one more astrological story but the Story that puts an end to all superstition. The world is not the result of dark, unintelligible forces, but the creation of eternal reason itself. Also, the story indicates that the truth can be found by all who sincerely seek it, even though their starting points may not in themselves be valid.
@Damian – how do you know?
I am saying that it is the point of the story. That it is not the stars that determine our fate – they are not divine. Astrology is false. It is the Word, the creative power of the logos, that made the entire universe. How do we know? There are lots of pointers: our own ability to reason and study the universe suggests that we too have been given a spark of the divine intelligence behind it. The hope we find within ourselves is another pointer. Our desire for goodness is another. Without God, goodness itself has no real meaning and the words ‘ought’ and ‘should’ would not be applicable to us. Indeed our freedom would be an illusion yet we believe we are free to behave in one way or another. Nor is it wishful thinking. Christianity makes demands we would often rather not follow – the cross is involved.
Damian,
your spouting YOUR beliefs as if they can be proven by any rational method – when they are just concepts you were brainwashed into accepting.
It’s also noted that only Christianity has any relevance in your point of view – how arrogant – nobody elses belief systems get a look in let alone ‘the real world’.
Like all Christians I have met when confronted by the stone cold fact that – no Hebrew boy would ever have been given a Greek name, had he actually existed he might have been called Josiah but never Jesus.
So what do you Christians do – confront this fact and change the name to Josiah – of course not – that would mean that the bunch of Greeks who wrote this fairy tale got it wrong – what else did they get wrong the whole b/s?
All Christian festivals and important dates are a straight steal from other cultures aka the whole thing is a bodge together of whatever these Greeks thought would fool the ignorant.
‘No serious historian doubts the existence of Jesus’ – the sad thing is you really believe in what your saying – not so long ago you Christians were mass murdering across the whole planet anyone who was’nt brainwashed or would’nt accept your Great Lie.
Why don’t you get your little Swabian CEO to give all his gold jewellery to feed the poor and stop wearing robes that cost $thousands and thousands – vow of poverty – where did that go to.
“Without God, goodness itself has no real meaning”
Are you suggesting that people who have no God aren’t good?
Do you mean that you are only good because of God? I don’t have one and I’m good! I guess it means that, as I’m good on my own without needing the outside influence, I’m better than you.
No, I don’t mean that at all. I am sure you are good. You are missing the point a little. Think of it in a different way. Why do we recognise good? Where do our obligations ultimatel y ome from. What is love? It is good that you are asking. Why not read CSL Lewis’s mere Christianity. It would give you a good general introduction.
Ok Stuart. No worries. It might be worth asking yourself though why you believe what you do. You will probably find it is very similar to what other people your age and in your place believe. I have not been brain washed – that is your assumption. Sharing ideas with others and defending them is not arrogant, just human. We are social creatures. But don’t worry. I cannot see you are not interested, so I won’t continue. Have a great 2013 anyway. Cheers!
Stuart. No worries. It might be worth asking yourself though why you believe what you do. You will probably find it is very similar to what other people your age and in your place believe. I have not been brain washed – that is your assumption. Sharing ideas with others and defending them is not arrogant, just human. We are social creatures. But don’t worry. I cannot see you are not interested, so I won’t continue. Have a great 2013 anyway. Cheers!
“Think of it in a different way. Why do we recognise good? Where do our obligations ultimately come from.”
I recognise ‘good’ and ‘love’ as basic characteristics of humanity. I don’t need a God for that and, frankly, I’m amazed anybody does. I have no idea where our obligations come from and I have no need to know – if indeed they ‘come from’anywhere.
I also recognise ‘bad’ and ‘hate’ as an unfortunate characteristics of humanity. I suppose that as you think that as ‘good’ and ‘love’ come from your God then ‘bad’ and ‘hate’ do too?
“Why not read CSL Lewis’s mere Christianity”
Are you only talking about the Christian God here? Are all the other religions (e.g. Islam which has the same God) and we atheists all wrong?
Thank you Jimeno.
Well, I guess that atheists think that everyone else is wrong too, so I am not sure what your point is here exactly. I prefer to think of it in more positive terms.We are seekers, and the more we search sincerely the more human we are. We can all grow in the truth. We can not possess the truth, rather it possesses us.
Clearly you have already grasped some truth when you say Good and Love are characteristics of humanity. Indeed they are since we have been created in the image and likeness of the one who is goodness and love. Bad and Hate are simply the absence or perversion of Good and Love, just as darkness is the absence of light.
I realise that I am telling you what I believe. I hope that is allowed? Feel free to read whatever you like. I was just making a suggestion.
Jimeno, Stuart and others. I believe that you are loved and that your life is good. I don’t believe I am better than you – it is not for me or for you to judge that. So, don’t be angry.
I have a busy few days coming up. I hope you had a great Christmas and all the best for 2013. It’s been fun.
Back to the Pope’s announcement – we must suppose therefore that the Magi travelled with on foot, or by boat. Google Earth gives us around 5,000 km, so at least a couple of years on foot, and there is no biblical reference to a boat, which is strange, to say the least. Remember they have to get to the stable / cave / inn within a very tight time frame, either before the couple run off to Egypt to escape Herod’s massacre (if it was around 4 or 5 BC – Matthew), or just going back to Jerusalem within 8 days in 7 A.D (Luke). Either way their timing is fantastic. Wise men indeed !
And what was that announcement. I have just read the book and the newspaper reports are completely misleading, as usual!
Damian,
it is both arrogant and stupid to suppose that others need to believe in anything – thought is not reality – only reality is real. Thought is a projection of the past so can never exist in the moment, which is the domain of reality.
Denial syndrome – no response to the stone cold fact that a Hebrew boy would ever be given a Greek name and still you cling like a dying man to the dysfunctional belief that YOUR god is the only God.
‘Sharing ideas with others and defending them’ – you expose yourself totally. Defending these ideas – like the Pope ordering the extermination of the Cathars because, just by existing they were a challenge to the power obsessed Pope – are’nt all Popes obsessed by their power trip – pure Roman and nothing to do with any half baked religious ‘ideas’.
It is cowards who refuse to accept total responsibility for their own lives/actions and words who are only to willing to become Crusaders/Mujahedin/NKVD/Gestapo/CIA/MI6 – you Christians are the original Teflon cowboys.
I don’t have a belief system – why do I need one, I have the real world to inter-react with.
Stuart
Some things don’t require a response because they are so far fetched.
and misinformed.
You do sound very moral and judgmental. You say you have no belief system yet you talk about only cowards not accepting responsibility. A bit of a contradiction!
Happy New Year.
My father was a scientist, engineer and mathematician; although he called himself an atheist, he also in later life said that the world and universe was so mathematically perfect, it denied being “chance”
Stuart,
He was given a Hebrew name; Yeshue.
All languages have their own version of it. Jesus is closer to the Greek. Your point is an odd one.
The only odd thing here, is people believing stuff that can never be proven. Grimms fairy tales have greater credibility.
As for An’s dad. Strange that he began to cover his odds as he grew closer to the finish line. After all, there are no atheists in a lifeboat….
If God could be ‘proved’ in the way you mean I.e. fully grasped by your understanding, then he would not be God. There are lots of pointers that make Christianity reasonable.
Good try Frangelico,
but where is your proof that he was given the name Yeshue – to make this statement you must provide evidence.BTW – Jesus is pure Greek – ask a Greek for confirmation.
Damien – like all religious freaks you accuse others of your failings – it is you who has consistently made far fetched statements. What a shame for you that we live in the 21st century otherwise you could report me to your CEO/pope and have me burnt at the stake – you Catholics are famous for that through the centuries.
You cannot make a single rational retort to anything that sane people on this thread have raised.
Catholicism was created by Constantine in an attempt to hold together the disintegrating Roman empire. He gave it all the trappings of a typical Roman power structure and this has never changed.
Celibacy was introduced because the Catholic power structure wanted to hold onto all the loot – they did’nt want priests families to make legitamate demands on a priest’s estate and of course there is no mention of celibacy in the Book of Lies.
And the whole world now knows about the bond between the Mafia and the Vatican.
It should come as no surprise that countries where organised religion was overthrown by organised politics have now reverted to organised religion aka Russia (China will follow soon) Poland/Romania et al – the religious cult of the personality for political cult of the personality and back again.
People who are truly free feel repugnance for those serfs who feed the cult of the personality.
There is no mention at all in the Book of Lies about sumptuous special clothes for the priests, no mention of bishops/archbishops or popes is there? – all created from the Roman model, like using Latin as the ‘official’ language of Christianity when, according to the nasty fairy tale it was the Romans who sanctioned the execution – bizarre hardly described this huge contradiction.
I would’nt come down on the Roman Catholics so hard if they stopped calling themselves Christians – many Christians refer to the Pope as the anti-christ – a very accurate description.
To be factual about the little Nazi CEO – he could have died for Joshua and gone to heaven, neither he nor his brother or father chose this path, rather they quite happily donned the Nazi uniforms – which tells everyone that none of them believed the b/s about going to heaven, not that anyone knows where this ‘place’ is.
This Nazi was head of the Inquisition, now renamed the Office of Reconstruction. FACT – he spent the whole time covering up anything about the paedaphile priests. Indeed he did this when he was still in Germany – all this is documented and proven. So when this ugly little man says he is so sorry for all the paedaphile priests in the Catholic church he exposed himself as a total liar.
I think John’s words from 1970 resonate thunderously today,
“they keep you doped with religion, sex and TV
and you think your so clever and classless and free
but your still f-#~>~g peasants as far as I can see”
Is there anyone (apart from religious or political freaks) that does’nt think that the London Olympics should have been closed with John’s ‘Imagine’ – a truly unifying song.
Stuart
How your comments get passed the moderator I will never know. You have a distorted view of Christianity. Your. comments are a mockery, no more.
Good luck to you anyway.
Clearly the Season of Goodwill !
@Frangelico
A significant proportion of Catholic dogma has its basis in “tradition”, which is just another way of saying that it’s made up as you go along. I don’t need to read any of the present pope’s writings, or any pope’s for that matter, to know this…
“If God could be ‘proved’ in the way you mean I.e. fully grasped by your understanding, then he would not be God.”
Now that is one really useful get-out clause!
I often wonder how you people know this stuff. I mean how do you know that if God was provable or fully understandable he wouldn’t be God?
Basic logic.
Please recognise your Iron Age superstition for what it is. If your omnipotent “God” really exists then why did he create a universe that conforms to the laws of physics? Why didn’t he make birds out of lead or sunlight out of cream cakes? He’s omnipotent. Capable of any act. Anything at all. Yet it seems your god is completely, utterly constrained by the laws of the universe. Is this in case someone sees him? What you call evidence of his existence is simply natural phenomena not understood in the slightest two thousand years ago. Your priests and scribblers had not the faintest inkling, the dimmest recognition, any idea whatsoever how the Universe really works so they made up stories to make themselves feel better, less insignificant, less alone. When telling those stories to others the listeners felt better too and that gave the story tellers power. They liked power, they built up their power. That’s how it’s always been.
We laugh, love, lose, mourn feel all the emotions our intelligence endows us with because we’ve evolved big complicated brains. All that is required is sufficient time. We are special, rare but not unique in the universe but that’s no reason to pin all your hopes and fears in the 21st century on ancient myth. Don’t be afraid of the future, it’s brighter than you think.
God is rational. Rationality and truth are powerful, unlike irrationality. Indeed that goes back to the point of the story of the three kings: It is not the star that determines the fate of the child, it is the child who directs the star. You’d be amazed if you researched properly the contribution of the Church to science and astronomy in particular. Man is made in God’s image, that’s why the catechism defines man as a rational being. You can think what you like but you ought to try to understand the Christian philosophy a little better. It would avoid the kind of ignorance so rife today. Anyway, I am really done this time. And please Stuart, reply if you want but try to be a little more sober.
Iestyn ap Robert
If you want to have an informed opinion, you have to read them. I think you would find them interesting. To refuse to read them in the way you do is a sign of intolerance.
“Basic logic.”
Yeah right!! Anybody else twigged that we are being trolled big time? Stupidity like this has to be deliberate. Nobody really thinks this stuff for real
“God is rational”
How do you know?
“It is not the star that determines the fate of the child, it is the child who directs the star.”
How do you know?
“Man is made in God’s image”
How do you know?
” It is not the star that determines the fate of the child, it is the child who directs the star. You’d be amazed if you researched properly the contribution of the Church to science and astronomy in particular. ” * * * Now I am totally confused. You say on the one hand that the child directs the star, and at the same time that the Church has contributed to Astronomy. But if a Child can direct a star, astronomy is as random as a child’s birth. And I am not sure Galileo Galilei would totally agree with you about the contribution of the Church to science and astronomy. The Islamic church shut down scientific research here in Spain in the 1100s, and has continued to do so ever since, which is why the Islamic States produce nothing (except oil, which is sucked out of the ground by Yanks and Brits)
“It is not the star that determines the fate of the child, it is the child who directs the star. You’d be amazed if you researched properly the contribution of the Church to science and astronomy in particular. ”
LMAO – well spotted!
@Frangelico Nowhere did I say I refused to read the current pope’s “teaching”. I simply stated that there was no need for me to. The Catholic church makes things up as it goes along and always has done.
The child is the logos, eternal creative reason incarnate. That is the whole point.
Galileo died in bed at the age of 78, a faithful catholic. You should not believe all the atheist stuff.
“Galileo died in bed at the age of 78, a faithful catholic” Quite so. A faithful Catholic who knew that the Church’s teaching and dogma was wrong.
It was neither church teaching nor church dogma.
It was however heresy. – “Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the center of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to “abjure, curse, and detest” those opinions”. – In fairness the Vatican did apologise. In the year 2000 !
It was only heresy insofar that he was demanding certain parts of scripture to be given a particular interpretation. Scientifically the Church was right in that Galileo had not proved his theory. The verdict was unjust, you are right. The punishment was very light. Copernicus had proposed the heliocentric theory decades before Galileo and many churchman supported – and the Church was very relaxed about it. The case was a complex one and came at a sensitive time. Before Galileo’s time, during and after, the contribution of the church to science has been enormous, in part due to the insistence of Thomas Aquinas and others that God is rational. You are right, though, the Church did get things wrong with Galileo.He died a devout Catholic.
Going back to the original story, is it just co-incidental that the festival of the 3 Kings is celebrated in Spain.
All Catholics and many other Christians celebrate it. We know what the story is trying to teach us – that.Christ opens up God’ covenant to the whole world. Whether it happened in the same way as the gospels suggests is open to debate but the Pope’s opinion is that the Christ child did receive a visit of this kind. However, the article is misleading in that the Pope did not say they came from Andalucía.