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To: scrabblehack

Magi is a Persian word... Daniel is a very familiar prophet to the Persians... a sixth century Mosaic in the church of the Nativity (I know it probably isn’t an accurate site) showed the Wise men in Persian clothes...I can not be sure, but I think they were the Persian school of Magi


38 posted on 12/17/2019 9:27:26 AM PST by pastorbillrandles (ore and rebuild Jerusale)
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To: pastorbillrandles; MHGinTN
Magi is a Persian word.

Maybe, but so is "paradise" a word borrowed from Farsi and made a part of the Greek language, used three times in the NT (Lk. 23:43, 2 Cor. 12:4, Rev. 2:7). None of these have anything to so with Persia. Regarding the Hellenic use of the word "Magos/Magoi":

==========

Strong's Number G3097

μάγος
magos
mag'-os

Strong's Definition
Of foreign origin [H7248]; a Magian, that is, Oriental scientist; by implication a magician: - sorcerer, wise man.
Total KJV occurrences: 6

Thayer's Definition:
1) a magus
. . 1a) the name given by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes, Persians, and others, to the wise men, teachers, priests, physicians, astrologers, seers, interpreters of dreams, augers, soothsayers, sorcerers etc.
. . 1b) the oriental wise men (astrologers) who, having discovered by the rising of a remarkable star that the Messiah had just been born, came to Jerusalem to worship him
. . 1c) a false prophet and sorcerer

Part of Speech: noun masculine

========

Magos is a Greek word also. Because of their extensive contact with Mideastern Asians in warfare and in administering Alexanders conquests, they adopted the word and Hellenized it into "Magos" (Magoi is the plural form). So has the English language its Anglicized form "magician." But thus because someone is called a magician or a magus (in Latin) doesn't mean that one is referring to a person of Persian descent. Because Jesus told the thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise" (a Persian word for a protected garden of recreation) didn't mean that He would take the thief to Persia for a vacation.

Examples of "magos"

"And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcererμαγος, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus: . . ." (Acts 12:6 AV) 

Bar Jesus was a Jew, not a Persian, though he practiced magic.

"But Elymas the sorcererμαγος (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith" (Acts 13:8 AV).

The term "Elymas" was a foreign word (not Persian) describing the person's occupation as a wizard, Magos being another name for it. He was not a Persian, either. Both of these guys were on the Greek island Paphos, far away from Persia or Anatolia.

Thus for Levi to use the Greek word "Magos" (plural magoi, as found in Matthew) did not at all necessarily mean that these "wise men" came from Persia. A wise man from Anatolia would, in a Greek-speaking culture, be titled "Magos," as one can gather from Thayer's better, more detailed lexicon.

This noun of Farsi origin was also turned into a verb:

"But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorceryμαγευων, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:" (Acts 8:9 AV).

This guy was a Samaritan person, and Peter had to go and reprimand him.

So, claiming the Magoi to necessarily be from Persia would be a sort of "iffy" proposition, not wholly supported by history, culture, or Scripture, not an unarguable exegesis of the Wise men story.

 

51 posted on 12/17/2019 2:39:08 PM PST by imardmd1
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