Saturday, November 14, 2009

What are the names of the three Wise Men ?

Could someone please tell me the names of the three Wise Men that followed the star to Bethlehem when Christ was born?

What are the names of the three Wise Men ?
There is nothing in the Bible that limits the number of the wise men to three, nor anything that gives a clue to their names. The names of the wise men, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, do not come from the Bible and did not appear in Christian literature until over five hundred years after the birth of Jesus.
Reply:The bible doesn't tell us there names
Reply:In Christian tradition the Magi, also known as the Three Wise Men, The Three Kings, or Kings from the east, are Zoroastrian judicial astrologers or magi from Ancient Persia who according to the Gospel of Matthew came "from the east to Jerusalem", to worship the Infant Jesus, whom they describe as the Christ "born King of the Jews". According to Matthew, they followed a star, and as they approached Jerusalem, Herod tried to trick them into revealing where Jesus was, but once they had found Jesus they left by a different route. According to Matthew, upon finding Jesus, the magi gave him an unspecified number of gifts, amongst which are three highly symbolic ones.





In the Eastern church a variety of different names are given for the three, but in the West the names have been settled since the seventh century as Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar. In the Eastern churches, Ethiopian Christianity, for instance, has Karsudan, Hor, and Basanater, while the Armenians have Kagba, and Badadilma (cf. Acta Sanctorum, May, I, 1780).





None of these names are obviously Persian or are generally agreed to carry any ascertainable meaning, although Caspar is also sometimes given as Gaspar, a variant of the Persian Jasper - "Master of the Treasure" - from which the name of the mineral jasper is derived. There is a claim that his real name was Rustaham-Gondofarr Suren-Pahlav of the Suren-Pahlav Clan, the ruler of the eastern-greater Iran, who ruled between 10BC to AD17, ruling the vast empire of the Saka at the time of Arsacid dynasty. Another candidate for the origin of the name Caspar appears in the Acts of Thomas as Gondophares (AD 21-c.47) i.e. Gudapharasa (from which 'Caspar' derives via the contrived corruption 'Gaspar'). This Gondophares was also a Suren, and declared independence from Parthia to become the first Indo-Parthian king; he is thus likely to be a descendant of the Rustaham-Gondofarr, who was allegedly visited by Thomas the Apostle. Christian legend may have chosen Gondofarr simply because he was an eastern king living in the right time period.





In contrast, the Syrian Christians name the Magi Larvandad, Hormisdas, and Gushnasaph. These names have a far greater likelihood of being originally Persian, though that does not, of course, guarantee their authenticity.





The first name Larvandad is a combination of Lar, which is a region near Tehran, and vand or vandad which is a common suffix in Middle Persian meaning "related to" or "located in". Vand is also present in the names of such Iranian locations as Damavand, Nahavand, Alvand, and such names and titles as Varjavand and Vandidad. Alternatively, it might be a combination of Larvand meaning the region of Lar and Dad meaning "given by". The latter suffix can also be seen in such Iranian names as "Tirdad", "Mehrdad", "Bamdad" or such previously Iranian locations as "Bagdad" ("God Given") presently called Baghdad in Iraq. Thus, the name simply means born in or given by Lar.





The second name, Hormisdas is a variation of the Persian name Hormoz which was Hormazd and Hormazda in Middle Persian. The name referred to the angel of the first day of each month whose name had been given by the supreme God (of Zoroastrianism) who, in old Persian, was called "Ahuramazda" or "Ormazd".





The third name Gushnasaph was a common name used in Old and Middle Persian. In Modern Persian, it is Gushnasp or Gushtasp. The name is a combination of Gushn meaning "full of manly qualities" or "full of desire or energy" for something and Asp, Modern Persian Asb, which means horse. As all scholars of Iranian studies know, horses were of great importance for the Iranians and many Iranian names including the presently used Lohrasp, Jamasp, Garshasp, and Gushtasp contain the suffix. As a result, the second name might mean something like "as energetic and virile as a horse" or "full of desire for having horses". Alternatively, Gushn is also recorded to have meant "many". Thus, the name might simply mean "the Owner of Many Horses".





Help you?
Reply:Christian tradition holds that these Magi (members of a priestly caste of ancient Persia) were named Balthazar, Gaspar, and Melchior.
Reply:Scripture does not record this. In fact, it does not even say there were three of them. It just referred to wise men. There were three gifts mentioned, but no reference to the number of the wise men.
Reply:They were astrologers comdemed by God and almost got Jesus killed. It caused all those babies to die.


Doesn't say but why do we make them out hero's?
Reply:We don't know their names. We don't even know how many of them there were. We just know that wise men came bearing three gifts.


No comments:

Post a Comment