The nitpicker's guide to Journey to Bethlehem – part one

Who the Magi were, what the Star of Bethlehem was, what marriage customs were like, who Herod's son was, and more in the first half-hour of this movie.

Part one | Part two | Part three

An awkward betrothal: Mary (Fiona Palomo) meets Joseph (Milo Manheim) as her father Joachim (Antonio Cantos) looks on, in Journey to Bethlehem.

Journey to Bethlehem came out digitally a couple weeks ago, so I thought it might be fun to take a closer look at the film and how it plays with Christmas traditions, biblical sources, and ancient history. I’ll be going through the film scene-by-scene—just as I did in my scene guides for Risen, The Young Messiah, Mary Magdalene, and Paul, Apostle of Christ—and commenting on whatever details jump out at me along the way.

A few quick points, first:

• Needless to say, this film doesn’t take itself as seriously as some of the other films I’ve written about, but I’ll take any opportunity I can to go all Bible-nerd-y. So, I’m doing this all in a spirit of fun. But part of the fun is learning new facts, etc., so if I’ve missed anything important, by all means, please let me know.

• This turned into a much longer write-up than I was expecting, so I’ve broken it down into three parts, one for each half-hour of the film.

• Roughly half an hour’s worth of footage from the film is currently available on YouTube via official film clips, so I’m embedding those where appropriate.

• In the case of musical sequences that have not been released online yet, I am embedding the Spotify tracks so that you can listen to them, at least.

And now, on to the “nitpicker’s guide”…

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0:50-5:05 — The Magi see the star

An opening title card says: “Inspired by a true story… The greatest one ever told.”

• The phrase ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ is commonly associated with the 1965 Jesus movie of that title, which was based on a 1949 novel by Fulton Oursler, which in turn was based on an even earlier radio series.

• I do not know if the phrase was commonly used before that.

The intro is narrated by Mary, who says the story takes place “long ago, in the time of Caesar Augustus and in the land of Judea, ruled by the evil king Herod”.

• Luke 2:1 says Jesus was born during the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 BC-AD 14), and the two gospels that discuss the Nativity both say it happened during the reign of Herod, who died in 4 BC (Matthew 2, Luke 1:5).

The narration goes on to say that Mary “didn’t know yet that she was chosen by God to fulfill an ancient prophecy to bring forth a promised king, sent to save the world.”

• It’s not clear which specific prophecy is being referred to here.

• Matthew’s gospel cites a few prophecies that were fulfilled by the birth of Jesus, but only one of them mentions a king or “ruler”, i.e. Micah 5:2, which says the ruler will come from Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David. (It’s quoted in Matthew 2:6.) Notably, however, this prophecy seems to indicate that the ruler in question will conquer the world, not “save” it, per se (Micah 5:3-6, 8-9, 15).

• There is an interesting tension within the prophetic tradition—and sometimes within the same text—between visions of a future in which the messiah and/or the people of Israel plunder and lay waste to their enemies (e.g. Isaiah 11:12-16) and visions of a more positive-sounding future in which the messiah and/or the people of Israel “bring justice to the nations” and are “a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 42:1-7, quoted in Matthew 12:17-21; Isaiah 49:6, quoted in Acts 13:47).

• This tension between conquering the Gentiles and inspiring them can even be seen in different canonical versions of the same passage. The Hebrew version of Amos 9:11-12 says God will restore David’s people so that they can “possess” the nations, but the Greek version says, more invitingly, that God will restore David’s people so that the nations can “seek” God. (Not surprisingly, it is the Greek version that is quoted in Acts 15:16-17, when the apostles decide to let Gentiles into the church without imposing Jewish customs on them.)

The narration then says, “Far away in the east, there were three kings of the order of the Magi…”

• The Magi are mentioned only in Matthew’s gospel, which says they came from “the east” (Matthew 2:1).

• The word “Magi” comes from a class of Zoroastrian priests who lived in ancient Persia (i.e. modern Iran) and were said to be skilled astrologers. As Zoroastrians, the Magi would have been monotheists, just like the Jews—a point that is emphasized in the Iranian film Saint Mary (2000), which depicts the life of Mary, up to and including the birth of Jesus, from a Muslim point of view.

• The gospel never says how many Magi there were, but it is traditionally assumed that there were three of them because they gave three gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—to the baby Jesus and his parents (Matthew 2:11).

• The biblical Magi aren’t described as kings, but many ancient Christians seem to have assumed they were kings because the Old Testament talks about “kings” worshiping the messiah (Psalm 68:29, 72:11) and giving him “gold and incense” (Isaiah 60:3). This assumption is now reflected in traditions like the Christmas carol ‘We Three Kings’, which was written in 1857.

The narration says the Magi “knew of this prophecy.”

• Again, it’s not clear which prophecy is being referred to here.

• The biblical Magi don’t appear to have known about any prophecies; as far as the gospel is concerned, they simply saw the star and followed it. Even after they arrived in Judea, it was Herod, not the Magi, who consulted the chief priests and teachers of the law and learned about Micah’s prophecy (Matthew 2:4-6).

• Still, it’s not impossible that the Magi knew about some sort of prophecy, and indeed, there are legends to the effect that they were following a prophecy, just not a biblical one, e.g. the Syriac Infancy Gospel says they were following a prophecy made by Zoroaster, the founder of their religion, while the Revelation of the Magi says they were following a prophecy that went all the way back to Adam, the very first human.

The narration goes on to say, “For many years, these Magi had been searching for a certain star to appear, signaling the arrival of this divine child.”

• Just as the gospel does not say that the Magi were aware of any prophecies before they saw the star, it also does not say that they were actively looking for the star before they saw it. I have always assumed that the star was a “surprise”, for lack of a better word, which the Magi responded to by going on their journey.

The narration goes on to identify the three Magi as Balthazar, Gaspar, and Melchior, and it says they each had particular fields of expertise.

• The biblical Magi are never named or differentiated (or enumerated, even!), but these are the most common names for them in the western tradition. The names seem to have emerged sometime around AD 500.

The narration refers to Gaspar as “this Magi” at one point.

• The word “Magi” is a plural noun; the singular equivalent would be “Magus”.

Balthazar excitedly tells Gaspar about the “star” he just saw, but he also rattles off a lot of astronomical jargon: “The juxtaposition of the celestial alignment between Cronus and Ares, both the deferent and the epicycle model, show the same zodiacal positions of the five planets!”

• There has been a lot of speculation as to what, exactly, the Star of Bethlehem was. Some people think it was just a star, period, albeit one that may have been guided by supernatural forces. Others—noting that many ancient Jews believed the stars were living beings—think the star was an angel. (That belief is stated explicitly in the Syriac Infancy Gospel.) And others have argued that the “star” seen by the Magi was actually not a single object in the sky but a juxtaposition of objects, such as two planets whose paths crossed in an astrologically significant way.

• The film kind of slips and slides between the different interpretations. The Magi here sometimes talk about “the star” as if it were a single object in the sky, and on a few occasions, the star, or one just like it, is closely associated with the angel Gabriel. (When Gabriel appears to the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth, the star shines behind his head like a kind of halo.) But in this scene, Balthazar leans towards the astrological-juxtaposition side of the argument.