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Could some of the Magi who came looking for Christ at His birth; have been from China?
(I'll get to this question in a minute - first though):
I came across a blog post the other day that contained a very interesting piece of historical information. (Which I will link the blog post at the end here.) The subject of the post was the darkening of the sun and moon at the crucifixion and one of the commenters posted a historical text of an observation Chinese astronomers had made. Chinese astronomers (who are believed to be much more diligent at accurately recording astronomical events - or at least according to the standards of modern scientists) had recorded what they'd called a "double eclipse"; wherein both the sun and the moon had been obscured.
They had recoded this event to have happened between 5 PM and 8 PM their time. Which based on time zone differences, would have been between noon and 3 PM in Jerusalem. They had recorded that the sun was darkened (which was assumed to have been from an eclipse) but they could not find the moon. So they recorded the moon as being in eclipse also, but had no explanation for this event based on where the sun and moon "should have" (or had) been in the sky.
Now several modern people (scientists / historians / whomever) have tried to figure out where this event would fit historically (trying to pinpoint western ancient history with eastern ancient history). They have this phenomena having happened somewhere in the proximity of 31 A.D. Yet they base this assumption on what they could "peg" of predicable solar eclipses.
The problem though is that the darkening of the sun at the crucifixion could not have been caused by a solar eclipse because the Passover always falls on a full moon. If the moon's orbit around the earth was on the same plane as the earth's orbit around the sun; then we'd have two "new moons" a month. So based on the positions of the three "planetary" bodies in space, it would have been impossible for the moon to have caused a solar eclipse during the crucifixion.
So taking that into consideration; we can understand that we would not be confined to a year where a predictable solar eclipse would have happened. The year of the crucifixion was 33 AD. We know this because that is the only year of any possible candidates where Passover fell from a Thursday into Friday.
Historically too, there are other sources that mention these things. (One being a Roman historian (Tertullian) who did state this darkness of the sun was recorded in official Roman records.) Of course these records have not survived to today; yet are referenced by other church historians in the following couple of centuries.
Now we could get into prophecy and eschatology with verses such as: "immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun darkened ...." concerning the darkening of the sun and the moon at the crucifixion; but that would be the subject of a whole other thread. This thread is about Chinese magi.
Now the record of this astronomical event is part of a larger document that speaks of a "king", "sin" and "death". The general interpretation of this document is usually connected with the dynasty that was ruling in China at the time. Now I can't read Chinese, so I'm only relying on other's translation. So what the document is saying about this "king", "sin" and "death"; I have no knowledgable context of Chinese history to compare it to. (I'm not expert in ancient Chinese history.)
Yet if the Chinese astronomers (or whomever wrote this document to begin with) connected this astronomical event to the "death" of a "king", which had something to do with "sin"; how would they have known about the crucifixion? Unless..... there were magi from China (or at lest of close enough proximity that the Chinese would have learned this information) who'd come some nearly 40 years earlier looking for the Messiah.
Now personally, I would not doubt that there may have been some magi who'd come from as far as China. The Biblical text speaks of both some who "come from the east" as well as other's who "saw his star in the east" (meaning those travelers would have been coming from Europe, Africa or both). So here we have multiple groups of travelers from diverse lands all converging on Jerusalem at the same time looking for the King.
Darkness at Noon » Undivided Looking
(I'll get to this question in a minute - first though):
I came across a blog post the other day that contained a very interesting piece of historical information. (Which I will link the blog post at the end here.) The subject of the post was the darkening of the sun and moon at the crucifixion and one of the commenters posted a historical text of an observation Chinese astronomers had made. Chinese astronomers (who are believed to be much more diligent at accurately recording astronomical events - or at least according to the standards of modern scientists) had recorded what they'd called a "double eclipse"; wherein both the sun and the moon had been obscured.
They had recoded this event to have happened between 5 PM and 8 PM their time. Which based on time zone differences, would have been between noon and 3 PM in Jerusalem. They had recorded that the sun was darkened (which was assumed to have been from an eclipse) but they could not find the moon. So they recorded the moon as being in eclipse also, but had no explanation for this event based on where the sun and moon "should have" (or had) been in the sky.
Now several modern people (scientists / historians / whomever) have tried to figure out where this event would fit historically (trying to pinpoint western ancient history with eastern ancient history). They have this phenomena having happened somewhere in the proximity of 31 A.D. Yet they base this assumption on what they could "peg" of predicable solar eclipses.
The problem though is that the darkening of the sun at the crucifixion could not have been caused by a solar eclipse because the Passover always falls on a full moon. If the moon's orbit around the earth was on the same plane as the earth's orbit around the sun; then we'd have two "new moons" a month. So based on the positions of the three "planetary" bodies in space, it would have been impossible for the moon to have caused a solar eclipse during the crucifixion.
So taking that into consideration; we can understand that we would not be confined to a year where a predictable solar eclipse would have happened. The year of the crucifixion was 33 AD. We know this because that is the only year of any possible candidates where Passover fell from a Thursday into Friday.
Historically too, there are other sources that mention these things. (One being a Roman historian (Tertullian) who did state this darkness of the sun was recorded in official Roman records.) Of course these records have not survived to today; yet are referenced by other church historians in the following couple of centuries.
Now we could get into prophecy and eschatology with verses such as: "immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun darkened ...." concerning the darkening of the sun and the moon at the crucifixion; but that would be the subject of a whole other thread. This thread is about Chinese magi.
Now the record of this astronomical event is part of a larger document that speaks of a "king", "sin" and "death". The general interpretation of this document is usually connected with the dynasty that was ruling in China at the time. Now I can't read Chinese, so I'm only relying on other's translation. So what the document is saying about this "king", "sin" and "death"; I have no knowledgable context of Chinese history to compare it to. (I'm not expert in ancient Chinese history.)
Yet if the Chinese astronomers (or whomever wrote this document to begin with) connected this astronomical event to the "death" of a "king", which had something to do with "sin"; how would they have known about the crucifixion? Unless..... there were magi from China (or at lest of close enough proximity that the Chinese would have learned this information) who'd come some nearly 40 years earlier looking for the Messiah.
Now personally, I would not doubt that there may have been some magi who'd come from as far as China. The Biblical text speaks of both some who "come from the east" as well as other's who "saw his star in the east" (meaning those travelers would have been coming from Europe, Africa or both). So here we have multiple groups of travelers from diverse lands all converging on Jerusalem at the same time looking for the King.
Darkness at Noon » Undivided Looking