"Said the night wind to the little lamb ... do you see what I see?" And the peppy little song goes on when the lamb says to the Shepherd Boy .... do you know what I know? ... And the Shepherd boy goes to the mighty King ... "Do you know what I know?" .... "A child, a child, shivers in the cold ... we must bring him silver and gold." And, finally .... "Said the King to the people everywhere ... "listen to what I say ... Pray for Peace People Everywhere ... A Child, a child ... sleeping in the night ... he will bring us goodness and light ... he will bring us goodness and light!"

How many hundred times have you heard it this season? Me too. And it's grated on me each time.

St. Matthew 2: 1,2 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. Saying, where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship him ...

Vs. 3 When Herod heard these things, he was troubled ....

Vs. 4. he gathered all the chief priests and scribes ... and demanded of them where Christ should be born ...

Vs. 5. And they said, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for it is written by the prophet.

.Vs 7. ... Herod called the wise men, and inquired diligently what time the star appeared.

Vs. 8 ... Herod sent them to Bethlehem, telling them to go find the child, then return to him, and tell him where, so that he could go worship too!

Vs. 12-15 ... And angel tells the wisemen Herod was lying. The wise men do not return to King Herod.

Vs. 16 .... "Then Herod .... sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men."

See any difference in the story?

This merry little Christmas carol - targeted toward children - was written in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a plea for peace by it's writer. Evidently the scripture account didn't fit the narrative. And, how many hundreds of thousands of people sing along each year ... teaching it to their kids, and drilling into the minds of all who sing along and hear .... the party line version of how the good king will direct the people for peace.

Gary


Footnote: The fact that Herod had all those two years and under killed, is the reason that some scholars feel that the wise men came to a house (Vs. 11) where the Holy family was living later. The wise men had seen the star announcing Christ's birth ... but it took time for them to travel from the East. Herod had grilled them as to when the star had appeared. It had clearly been nearly two years prior. That determined Herod's insane instructions to kill all the two year and under children. BTW ... Herod served at Rome's pleasure - over Judea. Those were restless times. He was not going to make room for any "King of the Jews" to be born there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2010 09:08PM by barnespneumatic.

Revision is a nice little tool to let people tell the story they would like to tell. It's used by communists and liberals all the time. Current example is the the movie about Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson (a putz promoted far beyond his first level of incompetence). Even the reporters for the Post repeat the revisionist lie he told about debunking some intelligence about the Iraq weapons program. Despite the fact that he had claimed to debunk this document 8 months before it was known to exist and that he subsequently had to testify and the investigators asked how he could have had an opinion on something he never saw... He was then "confused" but the MSP continues to refer to the known lie and the revision lives on telling a lie.

Gary,

Thanks for posting this. Didn't catch it till now!

I have done some study, research on the birth, and it doesn't fit our current calendar. Scholars think the birth may have happened in September or October and these men did travel for about 2 years. But religion has bundled it nicely to a certian day, event. It was miraculous non the less, and fullfilled a lot of prophecy. Herod did kill a lot of children out of fear of his throne bing taken. "Rachel weeping for her children" is the Old Testament verse I think that goes with this forget right now where it is. But Christ didn't come to be born, he did come to die - to reconcile man to God. Heb 10 really covers why he needed to come.

We will see more revision, changes coming as men try to remove God's word from the world.

Pedro

I've heard this song a thousand times this season. So sweet a sound. The story, as edited by the song writer, is completely different from the Christmas story. King Herod hardly told the people to pray for peace, and he certainly didn't intend to see Jesus bring goodness and light to his kingdom. He was terrified of what he saw as a threat to his kingdom. Based upon the debriefing of the Wise Men, who had mistakenly gone to him first - assuming he knew of Jesus' birth - Herod learned that Jesus had been born within a two year time window - based upon when the star had appeared, which they had been following. Based upon this intelligence - Herod decreed that all male children 2 years and under; should be put to death. So it was done. Hardly the song lyrics sweetly taught to our children to sanitize the story.
Gary

This post just struck me in light of some recent news stories/events.

History doesn't repeat itself- at best it sometimes rhymes. M. Twain

A family recently signed up for health insurance on an Obamacare site. Their 18 mo old child wasn't listed with their two other older children on the policy. They called three seperate times and they were told the child would have to have it's own policy. Only when the newspaper called to confirm this was the "mistake" corrected. What gives?

[www.americanthinker.com]

The great thinkers associated with the current administration don't believe that you are a "person" until after you are 2 years old. They agree that infants are human but not persons and therefore have no rights.

[www.freerepublic.com]

In Europe, this belief is currently used to deny care to children born with abnormalities, some not even life threatening. They push these non-persons to the corner of the nursery to die of dehydration.

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Remember, since we are doing away with rights being "...endowed by their creator.." and they are now granted by the government, the rights of personhood can also be easily taken from those who no longer meet the critieria of personhood. Did our constitutional scholar president omit that by accident.

The left has been talking about how expensive the last three months of life can be (They espouse this to the young useful idiots who can't concieve of every being 60 and don't know their parents let alone a grandparent over 60.) and now they are starting to talk about how expensive the first three months (or up to 2 years) can be. Don't worry they will give some political officer, those navigators should work just fine, a manual to help them determine when those last three months begin.

Even better, now with DNA testing we can see how expensive some of these non-persons might become, we'll just check for that fat gene or the hypertensive gene or that diabetes gene. Oh, don't worry we would never use that eye and hair color gene to make these kinds of decisions, that so 1940ish. But that free thinker gene, that's got to go!!

The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few, or the one. Spock Rath of Kahn. When the individual makes this determination for himself it is selflessness. When the state makes it for the individual it is tyrrany. Contrast with John 11:50

Got to go, I see my web cam light just flickered on and off!