WISEMEN-2 ENDNOTES OF SCHOLARLY SOURCES
{Where document name is cited first, it is quoted)
1.� Although Jesus birth year was supposed to be 1 AD according to the Gregorian calendar we use today, miscalculations were made in creating it.� Jesus was actually born around 6 B.C.
2.� Ecbatana was capital of Persia when the Medes controlled it centuries earlier, and is where the archives were kept.� See also The Bible, Ezra 5:17; 6:1-2.
3.� Daniel referred to details of the Law of Moses, which was part of the Old Testament, and must have taken a copy with him from Palestine to Babylon (today's Iraq).� See in the Bible, Daniel 9:11-13.� He also referred to the book of Jeremiah in Daniel 9:2; therefore the Jews must have taken copies of the prophetic books with them also.
4.� THE BIBLE, Jeremiah 25:1, 11 - The word came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim ...which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.... This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
5.� THE BIBLE, ISAIAH 44:28-45:1, 4 (Predicted about 125 years before King Cyrus of Persia was born) -� When I say of Cyrus, "He is my shepherd," he will certainly do as I say; and Jerusalem will be rebuilt and the Temple restored, for I have spoken it.� This is Jehovah's message to Cyrus, God's anointed, whom he has chosen to conquer many lands.� God shall empower his right hand and he shall crush the strength of mighty kings.� God shall open the gates of Babylon to him....And why have I named you for this work?� For the sake of...Israel, my chosen.� I called you BY NAME when you didn't know me [wasn't born yet].
6.� THE BIBLE, DANIEL 1:3f, 2:46 - Then he ordered...to select some of the Jewish youths brought back as captives - young men of the royal family and nobility of Judah - and to teach them the Chaldean [Babylonian] language and literature.� "Pick strong, healthy, good-looking lads," he said, "those who have read widely in many fields, are well informed, alert and sensible"....The king made Daniel very great; he gave him many valuable gifts, and appointed him to be ruler over the whole province of Babylon, as well as chief over all his wise men.
7.� Esther in the Bible was Queen of Media-Persia and married to King Aha-Suerus (Xerxes) around 460 B.C., some 90 years after Daniel was a governor there (see in the Bible Esther 1:1 and Daniel 1:1- 6; 2:48).� Governor Daniel's book would have been put in the national library.� Queen Esther, also a Jew, might have been responsible for preserving it later in the national archives.
8.� THE BIBLE, Daniel 2:39-44 - "...After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours.� Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth.� Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron - for iron breaks and smashes everything....In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed...."
9.� THE BIBLE, NUMBERS 4:3 - Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of ago who come to serve in the work of the Tent of Meeting [Tabernacle].
10.� THE BIBLE, DANIEL 9:25 - Know and understand this:� From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.'
11.� THE BIBLE, Ezra 7:1, 6, 9 - After these things, during the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra...came up from Babylon....
He had begun his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month.
12.� Artaxerxes reigned from 465 BC to 425 BC.� Scholars agree that the Christian calendar was off by four to eight years.� Based on events in the life of Herod and his family, Jesus was born in 6 B.C.� Thus, with the corrected Gregorian calendar, Artaxerxes' reign would actually be 459 BC and his seventh year 453 BC, 30 years before Jesus began to preach.� AMAZING DETAILED PREDICTION!
13.� THE BIBLE, Daniel 8:10, 20-21 - It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them....The two-horned ram that you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia.� The shaggy goat is the king of Greece....
14.� THE BIBLE, Daniel 12:2-3 - Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake:� some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.� Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
15.� THE BIBLE, NUMBERS 24:17 (Predicted about 1400 years before Jesus) -� I see in the future of Israel, far down the distant trail, that there shall come a STAR from Jacob!� This ruler of Israel....
16.� That Daniel had access to the prophetic writings while in Babylon and Persia is attested to in Daniel 9:1 and 2 that says, "In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom - in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years."
17.� THE BIBLE, Isaiah 9:2, 6-7 - The people walking in darkness have seen a great light....For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.� And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace....He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom...forever.
18.� THE BIBLE, ISAIAH 60:1a,3 -� Arise, my people!� Let YOUR LIGHT shine for all the nations to see....All nations will come to your light; mighty kings will come to see the glory of the Lord upon you.
19.� According to the TIME LIFE BOOK, "GREAT AGES OF MAN:� INDIA," after the Mauryan dynasty, India, especially in the north, remained mostly in small independent dynasties.� By far the most powerful ruler, however, was Gondo-phares.� It was he that tradition says the Apostle Thomas converted to Christianity some 35 years later.
20.� Ctesiphon was the capitol of Persia beginning about 250 B.C.
21.� In the year 2 BC, his Italian wife, Musa, poisoned her husband.� Four years later she married her son, Phraataces (Phraattes V), an act which horrified both Greeks and Romans.�
22.� See the Bible, Matthew 2:1 & 11..� It does not say how many wise men there were, nor their names.� It only says they brought three kinds of gifts.
23.� THE BIBLE, EZRA 7:9 - He had begun his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of his God was on him.
24.� THE BIBLE, MATTHEW 2:1-2 -� After Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory - this was during Herod's kingship - a band of scholars arrived in Jerusalem from the East.� They asked around, "Where can we find and pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews?� We observed a star in the eastern sky that signaled his birth.� We're on pilgrimage to worship him."
25.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XV, 10:4 -� ....Nor did he [Herod] permit the citizens either to meet together....and when they were caught...many there were who were brought to the citadel Hyrania, both openly and secretly, and were there put to death.� And there were spies set everywhere, both in the city and in the roads....He would oftentimes himself take the habit of a private man, and mix among the multitude, in the night time, and make trial what opinion they had of his government.� And as for those that could no way be reduced to acquiesce under his scheme of government, he prosecuted them all manner of ways.
26.� THE BIBLE, MATTHEW 2:3 -� When word of their inquiry got to Herod, he was terrified - and not Herod alone, but most of Jerusalem as well.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XV, 8:3-4 - ...citizens of Jerusalem conspired together against him [Herod]...and took daggers with them under their garments for the purpose of killing Herod....but spies...told the king of it....underwent all the torments inflicted on them till they died.
27.� THE BIBLE, MATTHEW 2:4-6 -� Herod lost no time.� He gathered all the high priests and religious scholars in the city together and asked, "Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?"� They told him, "Bethlehem, Judah territory.� The prophet Micah wrote it plainly:� 'It's you, Bethlehem, in Judah's land, no longer bringing up the rear.� From you will come the leader who will shepherd-rule my people, my Israel.' "
28.� FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, BK XV, 11:7 - There was also an occult passage built for the king:� It led from Antonia [palace] to the inner Temple...over which also he erected for himself a tower, that he might have the opportunity of a subterraneous ascent to the Temple, in order to guard against any sedition.�
29.� THE BIBLE, MICAH 5:2 (Predicted about 685 years before Jesus) -� O Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!
30.� THE BIBLE, MATTHEW 2:7-8 -� Herod then arranged a secret meeting with the scholars from the East.� Pretending to be as devout as they were, he got them to tell him exactly when the birth-announcement star appeared.� Then he told them the prophecy about Bethlehem, and said, "Go find this child.� Leave no stone unturned.� As soon as you find him, send word and I'll join you at once in your worship."
31.� THE BIBLE, MATTHEW 2:9-10 -� Instructed by the king, they set off.� Then the star appeared again, the same star they had seen in the eastern skies.� It led them on until it hovered over the place of the child.� They could hardly contain themselves:� They were in the right place!� They had arrived at the right time!
32.� While the Jews were captive in Babylon five hundred years earlier, they began speaking Aramaic, the language of the Mesopotamians, and continued to do so when they returned to Palestine.� Thus, conversations between people of those countries would not require a translator.
33.� For a discussion of the star from a historical point of view, read STAR OF JACOB by Wayne D. Leeper.
34.� THE BIBLE, MATTHEW 2:11a -� They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother.� Overcome, they kneeled and worshiped him.� [Notice, they no longer are in the stable with the manger.� They have moved into a house.]
35.� THE BIBLE, MATTHEW 2:11b -� Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts:� gold, frankincense, myrrh.
36.� THE BIBLE, ZECHARIAH 6:10-13 [Predicted nearly 500 years before Jesus] - Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah [three wise men] will bring gifts of silver and gold from...Babylon [the east]....Accept their gifts and make from them a crown from the silver and gold.� Then put the crown on the head of Joshua [Hebrew form of Greek Jesus]...the High Priest...."You represent the Man who will come, whose name is 'The Branch'....To him belongs the royal title.� He will rule both as King and as Priest."
37.� THE BIBLE, MATTHEW 2:12 - In a dream, they were warned not to report back to Herod.� So they worked out another route, left the territory without being seen, and returned to their own country.
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1