An Advent read

Mystery of the Magi: The Quest to Identify the Three Wise Men by Dwight Longenecker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This myth-busting book makes a wonderful Advent read, and Fr. Dwight Longenecker's enthusiasm for his own archeological and scriptural detective work is contagious. I came away from the book convinced that its thesis about the Magi being envoys from the Nabatian kingdom of King Aretas IV has considerable merit.

Longenecker's insights about the politics and economics of the ancient Middle East are fascinating. A chapter on the Star of Bethlehem starts muddled by dint of having to sift through half a dozen theories in as many pages, but eventually makes the case for the star (or planet or comet) being one of several significant astronomical events that the wise men viewed through a well-developed astrological and cultural lens.

Fortunately for all concerned, Longecker understands myth-busting as a handmaid of Truth rather than as a label that iconoclasts give their temper tantrums. The infancy narrative in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew is ultimately strengthened and deepened by this informative work.

The only missed opportunity here (it seems to me) is that although he's writing for non-specialists, Longenecker never explains the wiggle room in what became the divide between BC and AD notation. It's all well and good to point out that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, but lay readers may do double-takes if they know Latin abbreviations well enough to wonder why "Anno Domini" usage apparently suffers from a five- or six-year rounding error.