Advent Day 23: The Wise Men's Journey

 

Who were the wise men?  No one knows for sure.

It's possible they were familiar with the prophecies of Daniel.  They would also have been more than familiar with prophecies those announced in Judah before Babylon occupied the country.  Wise men would have studied and practiced astrology among other divining arts.   

The Sun, Moon and Stars were clearly visible to the naked eye.  Even the planets Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn could be seen without any aid  if one was trained to know what your eye rested upon.  But it is possible that a sort of telescope might also have been used.

As early as 750B.C.,  the Assyrians had discovered that sand when melted could be turned into glass  and that glass could have properties that would, with the use of the sun, help to start a fire or cauterize a wound and even magnify vision.   Ancient Grecian pottery fragments dating to 4 BC depicts a man using a rod of sorts to look into the distance.   Crude as they might have been, it's believed that the ancients had learned to connect two lenses within a tube.  This would have worked roughly like the later telescopes.

 Astrology in their day was not the inane personal predictions we might read  in a daily column in our modern times about finding the love of our life or discovering something that had been lost.   In the ancient days, the wise men in  royal courts of kings were trained to read the stars and divine messages of what might lie in the future.  They were remarkably accurate in their predictions.  The rise and fall of Kings and Empires were predicted and the study of the movement of the Sun, Moon and Stars gradually developed into the science of Astronomy, as the wise  men began to note the constant and often predictable movement of Sun, Moon, and Stars, as well as to notice when stars became more or less brilliant.

It was the astrologers who noticed how the pattern of the movement of the Sun and Moon affected the earth.  Tides followed the Moon.  Seasons began and ended with certain changes of the Sun's position.  Floods and droughts were more easily predicted due to the observations they made and recorded.  This allowed for a more stable agricultural year which meant greater success in farming. 

Perhaps the wise men had seen signs in the skies that something momentous was happening but they most assuredly would have noticed the new Star  that had not been there before, so much more brilliant than any they'd ever seen, in the western skies.  They knew that this star meant something momentous was taking place.

While it is popularly believed that only three (and in some stories, four or twelve)  wise men came to Bethlehem, it was undoubtedly a caravan that approached Judea.  

A caravan would have been necessary for so many reasons.  First,  there was the need for safety along such an arduous journey. The journey from Persia to Judea was roughly 1000 miles.   Some accounts say it took four months to travel that distance.     It may well be that they joined a caravan of tradespeople making the long trek to Judah to deliver their goods to merchants.  Merchants of the time went well armed and prepared to fight fiercely.  If they lost their goods along the way they lost the source of their income.    Marauders were far less likely to attack when there were a large group of men all too willing to fight back.  

Since the wise men were also carrying gifts of high value to present to the coming King they would surely have wanted the added protection that attaching themselves to such a caravan would have afforded them.   Likely they came with their own guards and fighting men to protect them but again, increased safety in increased numbers would have been most appreciated. 

As well, ta caravan would have needed quite a few supplies to travel such a distance.  Food for men and camels or horses.  Food for people and water to see them through the arid places. 

The wise men began their journey.  

Theirs was a journey of darkness.

Their journey was made still more difficult by the need to travel at times that might not have otherwise been hours for traveling.  If they did not travel only at night they would most certainly have begun their journey before daylight each day and walked until late in the evening  They were following the star that guided them in the direction they needed to go.  They would need to alter their course as each day came and while they might have travelled on cloudy days they would have surely needed to correct their course when the skies again cleared.   As well, there were places where passage was not at all possible for a group, but only for individuals to cross.  Difficult terrain often means taking an alternate route.  They would have needed to adjust their course again once the difficult areas were passed.  It might also have meant there were places where only great care would have allowed them to go on.   It may have been necessary to unload animals and physically move the goods to the other side of a particularly difficult place, take the animals across one by one and then reload them.  This would have taken time and might even have necessitated more than a day.  And all the while they had to be on guard, ready to fight both ahead and behind if bands of thieves were about.

All to follow a star that had appeared in the sky.  Because they had heard the prophecy and believed.

Song:  On the Road to Bethlehem  Bill Leslie, Christmas in Carolina