Three Wise Men (the Magi) and the Star of Bethlehem | Middle East And North Africa

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THREE WISE MEN (THE MAGI)

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Three Wise Men
After the birth of Jesus, the story goes, the Magi (the Three Wise Men) arrived in the area and asked: “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.” They were told by the chief priests of Herod to look in Bethlehem. They followed the star and found Jesus. Their arrival is celebrated with the feast of Epiphany. The Three Wise Men brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and were warned in a dream not to report anything to Herod and return quietly to where they came from "by another way." In Luke they surrender their ancient powers and strength to Jesus. They said they came from the land of Shir, possibly India or China.

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The “three kings,” aren’t in the Bible at all. We assume that there are three visitors because they bring three kinds of gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh). But the Bible doesn’t actually specify their number. Matthew’s story about the Magi does not imply that these mysterious visitors are kings; Matthew either regards them as magicians/astrologers or Zoroastrian priests. But early Christians noticed passages like Psalm 72:10-11, about kings from far-off lands rendering tribute to the King of Israel, and wondered whether this might have been a prophecy about the Magi. Tertullian in the third century describes the Magi as ‘almost kings,’ and almost two hundred years later, Augustine flatly calls them kings. From there, the belief became commonplace.” All of which means that the magi were wise men, likely schooled in astrology or even Zoroastrianism. Sorry to ruin the carol. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, December 24, 2016]

The wise men were given the names Balthazar, Gasper and Melchoir in the 6th century (the Gospels don’t even say how many wise men there were). They are thought to have been Zoroastrians who traveled 1,600 kilometers from Iran, through present-day Iraq, Syria, Jordan to Bethlehem. By one account they are buried in Iran in Saveh (near the Caspian Sea). In another account they lived to the ages of 116, 112 and 109 and their remains are in Cologne, Germany.

Websites and Resources: Jesus and the Historical Jesus Britannica on Jesus britannica.com Jesus-Christ ; PBS Frontline From Jesus to Christ pbs.org ; Life and Ministry of Jesus Christ bible.org ; Jesus Central jesuscentral.com ; Catholic Encyclopedia: Jesus Christ newadvent.org; Candida Moss at the Daily Beast Daily Beast; Christian Answers christiananswers.net ; Biblical History: Bible History Online bible-history.com ; Biblical Archaeology Society biblicalarchaeology.org

Star of Bethlehem

The Three Wise Men as everyone knows followed a star to Bethlehem. Accessing the path of the star described in Matthew, Brown wrote, “A star that rose in the east, appeared over Jerusalem , turned south to Bethlehem, and then came to rest over a house would have constituted a celestial phenomena unparalleled in astronomical history.” Scientist have speculated that this star may have been a planetary conjunction, a comet or an unusually bright star (perhaps a super nova) seen for 70 days and reported by Chinese astronomers in the spring of 5 B.C.

Johannes Kepler suggested that Jesus was born in 7 B.C. because that year there was an unusual alignment of Saturn, Mars and Jupiter in December that could have produced a bright object in the sky described as the Star of Bethlehem. Between September 5 B.C. and on April 17, 6 B.C. Jupiter appeared from earth to pause in orbit as the moon moved in front of Jupiter (the “kings” planet) while it was in the constellation of Aries, which was an ancient symbol of Judea to Greek and Roman astrologers. Some scholars have suggested that this was the star of Bethlehem.

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The idea that celestial events might prompt someone to undertake a lengthy journey wasn’t unusual to ancient people living in the Roman empire. It was pretty much a given that astronomical occurrences were a means by which God, or the gods, could communicate with people. The eclipse that takes place at the crucifixion, for example, is a clear sign that something of cosmic proportion had just taken place. God doesn’t seem thrilled. Using the stars to navigate is both good navigational practice and a form of divination. In Virgil’s Aeneid, the hero uses the stars to guide him on his quest, but this just makes him a respectable ship captain. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, January 6, 2022]

In some Christian traditions, the Magi have more than just the star to guide them. A twelfth-century stone carving from Autun Cathedral shows the three Magi snuggled in bed under a single embroidered blanket while an angel gently rouses them from their dream. In some earlier traditions, the star that guided the travelers was an angel itself, while in one tradition the star was the infant Jesus himself. More recent interpreters have been less generous in their interpretation. Jehovah’s Witnesses see the star as demonic technology inasmuch as it brought the foreign astrologers to Herod and set off a chain of events that endangered Jesus.

Book: “The Star of Bethlehem: the Legacy of the Magi” by Michael R. Molnar (Rutgers University Press, 1999) and “The Star of Bethlehem: An Astronomer’s View” by Mark Kidger (Princeton University Press, 1999)

Myths About Three Wise Men

Bethlehem Star
Candida Moss of the University of Notre Dame wrote in the Washington Post: “ According to the Christmas creche on display in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, the best-dressed attendees at the birth of Jesus were the three wise men. Often mistaken for kings — think of the Christmas carol “We Three Kings” — these visitors from the east are described in the Gospel of Matthew with the Greek word “magoi,” or wise men. Nothing about the story’s language suggests that these visitors were monarchs or even that they were three in number. People commonly think there were three because of the gifts enumerated in the Gospel of Matthew: We are told that they brought gold, frankincense and myrrh, but there could as easily have been two, four or eight wise men as three. [Source: Candida Moss, Washington Post, December 16, 2016. Moss is a professor of New Testament and the University of Notre Dame /+]

“There’s also no indication that the wise men visited Jesus as He lay in the manger, as is often shown on Christmas cards. When King Herod anxiously meets with them in Matthew 2:16, he thinks his reign might be threatened by the child they’ve come to visit, so he orders all boys 2 years old and younger slain. Thus Jesus could have been as old as 2 — a walking, talking toddler — when the wise men arrived.”“/+\

There may have been more than three wise men. Brent Landau, professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, said, and that Magi does not refer to the Zoroastrianism of ancient Persia, but it means they pray in silence, unusual in their time. Landau said, "There are actually some parts later on in the story that almost seem to portray the wise men as a group that is roughly the size of a small army."

What Were the Three Wise Men and Where Did They Come From

Olivia B. Waxman wrote in Time: “Matthew’s word Magi is a vague clue, since it can mean astronomers, wise men or magicians. The scholar Kirsten Swenson told Time: “They are called Magi in the Greek, which was a term that referred to a kind of subclass of Persian priests. But they have come to be known as wise men… Their orientation was much more in what we might today identify with science.” Looking to a star is “very much in keeping with the religious tradition of this place in time of looking to the heavens, the stars, and the planets for information about the gods’ wishes and doings, and some stars or planets were identified with God.” [Source: Olivia B. Waxman, Time, December 29, 2020]

Their interest in stars suggests Babylon, famous for its astrologers. The happiest guess of all turned out to be the one made in the 4th century by the decorators of the Church of the Nativity in Palestine, whose golden entry mosaic featured the Magi dressed as Persians, also renowned stargazers. When actual Persians came marauding in 614, it was the only place of worship they didn’t torch…

Gifts of the Three Wise Men and What the Meant

According to the Gospel, the men had followed a star to the house where Jesus and Mary were and presented gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.Olivia B. Waxman wrote in Time: “Then, like now, gold represented wealth and power. Frankincense was a type of incense and perfume. Myrrh is the “outlier,” according to Kristin Swenson, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the book “A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible”. It’s been used as a perfume and in ancient Egypt, in embalming processes, and which Christians have interpreted as foreshadowing Jesus’s death. In Mark 15:23, Jesus is offered wine with myrrh before his crucifixion, because to be a painkiller, Swenson says. Myrrh would also be used in oil used for anointing kings, which is significant given that the Magi had come looking for the king of the Jews. [Source: Olivia B. Waxman, Time, December 29, 2020]

“These luxurious gifts indicate that these visitors from the East “are people of great wealth and power, that’s kind of obvious based on the things they bring,” says “Swenson also points out that the Gospel of Matthew reimagines a prophecy from hundreds of years earlier, found in the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, which describes nations of the world recognizing Israel as the light of the world and celebrating that with gifts of gold and frankincense and other gifts of value. The gifts also offer clues where the men came from. Gold, frankincense and myrrh hint at Arabia, since unrelated Bible stories describe camel trains of similar tribute emanating from Sheba and Midian, both on that peninsula.

How the Magi Story Blossomed From a Few Lines in Matthew

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: According to the Gospel of Matthew, the only one of the canonical four to mention the Magi, they came to Jerusalem “from the east” and led by a bright star. They arrived in the Royal City and asked Herod and the scribes where the King of the Jews was supposed to be born (astral guides aren’t as precise as satellite navigation). Herod et alia dispatched them to Bethlehem. Once there, the Magi presented the infant Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. A dream warns them not to return to Jerusalem, so they take a different route back to wherever they came from. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, January 6, 2022]

This is all that Matthew tells us. He does not tell us the names of the Magi (which, according to most Christian tradition, are Balthazar, Kaspar, and Melchior). He does not call them kings but “wise men” or magoi. He doesn’t even tell us that there were three of them. The only reason we assume that there are three is that three different kinds of gifts are specified. But for all we know there were two, four, or, as some eastern forms of Christianity have it, twelve.

Dr. Eric Vanden Eykel, an associate professor of religion at Ferrum College currently writing a book on the history of the Magi, told me that nothing about the story is very specific. We don’t know where the Magi came from, what the meaning of the star is, or what “wise man” means. They might have been philosophers, astrologers, or magicians. In sum, he said, “Matthew tells us a lot less than most readers remember.”

These ambiguities created space for Christians—from antiquity to the present day—to fill in the blanks. One Syriac text known as the Revelation of the Magi, tells the story from the perspective of the Magi themselves. In this piece of ancient fan fiction, the magi are priestly figures who worship the God of Israel and “pray in silence.” They purportedly came from Shir, at the easternmost edge of the world. Comparatively mundane traditions, Vanden Eykel told me, suggest that the Magi came from ancient Persia. This interpretation, he said, came from Greek historical texts, like those written by the Geographer Strabo, that identified the Magi as a “class of people in Persian society.” As a result, Christian artwork of the Wise Men often shows them in Persian attire wearing Parthian trouser suits, cloaks, and floppy hats.

The identification of the Magi as kings was the product of early Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Dr. Brent Landau, author of a recent translation of the Syriac The Revelation of the Magi, told The Daily Beast that “early Christians noticed passages like Psalm 72:10-11, about kings from far-off lands rendering tribute to the King of Israel, and wondered whether this might have been a prophecy about the Magi. Tertullian in the third century describes the Magi as ‘almost kings,’ and almost two hundred years later, Augustine flatly calls them monarchs. From there, the belief became commonplace.” Not so common, however, that the testy Protestant reformer John Calvin would accept it. He called the identification of the Magi as Kings as a “childish error” by the Roman Catholics.

Social-Political Meanings in the Magi Story

Some scholars believe that the wise men were intended to be portrayed as fools rather than wise men. They say that their following a star was intended to be humorous and say that asking Herod for directions to the child was a dumb thing because Herod wanted to kill the child. The point, scholars say, was to show that even the most foolish people can find truth with God.

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The idea of undertaking such a long journey to initiate diplomatic relations with a new king was not that extraordinary either. According to a story related by Roman writers Pliny, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius, Tiridates, the Zoroastrian King of Armenia, traveled overland to Rome to pay his respects to the Emperor Nero and put an end to tension between Rome and Parthia. The visit was a huge success and was remembered for generations afterward. Some scholars have suggested that the story of the Magi was based on the Tiridates story. Vanden Eykel told me that while he wouldn’t go this far himself, it’s safe to say that “a story of people traveling in order to honor a king wouldn’t have stood out to first-century readers as unusual.” [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, January 6, 2022]

What is interesting about the Magi story, said Vanden Eykel, is how it becomes a blank slate onto which people can project their own theological interpretation of who Jesus was. Take, for example, the differentiated skin tone of the Magi in modern European and North American Nativity scenes. One of the Magi almost always has darker skin than the others. Part of the impetus for this idea comes from the Armenian Gospel of the Infancy in which the Magi are identified as coming specifically from Persia, Arabia, and India. The underlying motivation here is the idea of Jesus as a universal savior: Vanden Eykel said, “The sense would be that if you want to portray Jesus as a “global” messiah, then you’d want to have a range of skin tones present.” (The problem, of course, is that these Nativity scenes usually and erroneously present everyone else as exceptionally pale).

Using the Magi to convey the universality of the Jesus message does not always involve a focus on melanin. One of the fifth-century mosaics in the Basilica Sant’ Apollinaire Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy, shows the Magi at different junctures of their lives. One is a clean-shaven youth, the next a middle-aged man with a dark brown beard, and the last is older and silver-haired. Vanden Eykel said that images like this “frame the Magi as a kind of ‘representative sampling’ of non-Jews” and intimate that Jesus’s message is for everyone.

While the Bible itself tells us very little about who the Magi were, our interpretation of them tells us a great deal about ourselves. The sophisticated and elaborate interpretations of the meanings of the gifts they deliver; the speculation about the identities, origins, and even deaths of the Magi (their relics are supposed to be in Cologne); and the descriptions of their journey are all evidence of the vibrancy of Christian imagination.

How Our Current Idea of the Three Wise Men Was Shaped

Olivia B. Waxman wrote in Time: “The Magi had a lively postbiblical career. As early as the 2nd century, they were promoted to kings, probably because frankincense is associated with royalty in one of the Psalms. Their number, which varied in different accounts from two to 12, eventually settled on three, most likely because of their three gifts. By the 700s they had achieved their current names–Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar–and multiculti composition. “The first is said to have been … an old man with white hair and a long beard,” reads a medieval Irish description. “The second … beardless and ruddy-complexioned … the third, black-skinned and heavily bearded.” Scholars have suggested that the mix either was intended to underscore Christianity’s world-wide ambitions or referred back to an earlier diverse threesome, Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. [Source: Olivia B. Waxman, Time, December 29, 2020]

“The wise men seem to have kept busy well into their golden years, at least according to a calendar of saints at the great cathedral in Cologne, Germany, where their alleged remains are housed: “Having undergone many trials and fatigues for the Gospel,” it reads, they met one last time in Armenia. “Thereupon, after the celebration of Mass, they died. St. Melchior on January 1, age 116; St. Balthasar on January 6th, age 112; and St. Gaspar on January 11, age 109.”

“Medieval art played a key role in how many current Christmas traditions visualize these men. The Magi as a multiracial set of three figurines, made sometime before 1489, reflects the increased trade between Europe and Africa during the Medieval Period more than anything that was happening when the Gospel of Matthew was written, according to the art historians at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Paintings by artists like Botticelli, Peter Paul Rubens and Hieronymus Bosch (featured above) helped cement the image of the Magi as a diverse group of men in popular imagination. Perhaps the most famous musical depiction of the three men dates back to 1857, when Pennsylvania Episcopal clergyman John Henry Hopkins, Jr. wrote the song often called “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” which quickly became a popular American Christmas carol.

Ancient Manuscript Offers New Insights on the Three Wise Men

In 2011, it was revealed that an ancient document found in the Vatican offered new insights into the story of the Nativity and the Three Wise Men. Simon de Bruxelles wrote in The Times: “The Revelation of the Magi claims to be a first-hand account of their journey to pay tribute to the son of God but has only now been translated from ancient Syriac. Brent Landau, professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, spent two years deciphering the fragile manuscript. It is an 8th-century copy of a story first written down nearly half a millennia earlier, less than 100 years after the Gospel of Matthew, the original source for the Bible story. [Source: Simon de Bruxelles, The Times, December 21 2011|]

Landau had just finished learning ancient Syriac, a language similar to Aramaic, which Jesus Christ may have spoken, when he began translating the text. He said, "Basically I conclude that the text was written in the late second, early third century, which doesn't make it as early as the canonical gospels of the New Testament, which were written in the first century; but on the other hand, it does make it quite an ancient text by most standards of early Christian literature." His effort became the book "Revelation of the Magi." [Source: Carole Mikita, Deseret News, Jan. 6, 2011]

“The newly translated tale differs in major respects from Matthew's very brief account. The Magi of the Bible have long been associated with Persian mystics, but those in The Revelation are from much farther afield - from the semi-mythical land of Shir, now associated with ancient China. They are said to be the descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam, and to belong to a sect that believed in silent prayer. “Perhaps the biggest divergence from the traditional Nativity story is that according to The Revelation there were "scores" of Magi. Matthew himself does not give a number but the traditional myth is that there were three wise men, probably because they brought with them three gifts. The manuscript has been in the Vatican library for more than 250 years, but nothing else is known of its provenance.

“Syriac was the language spoken by early Christians from Syria and throughout present-day Iraq and Iran. Although the new story is not thought to have been written by the Magi as it purports, Professor Landau believes its anonymous authors closely identified with the mystics and the sect to which they belonged. It gives a detailed account of their prayers and rituals. He said: "Somebody was really fascinated by the wise men to have created this big, long story and tell it from their perspective. A great deal of thought and imagination has gone into it. There are many details of strange rituals, praying and silence. There is a description of a sacred mountain and purification at a sacred spring. The detail is so great I wonder if it is the community's actual practices that are being described. Nobody knows where Matthew got the story from, so along with Matthew's Gospel this is as close as you can get to the Magi."

“The story relates that Seth passed down a prophecy that a star would appear that would signal the birth of God in human form. The Magi waited thousands of years until the day the star appeared. Professor Landau said: "It transformed into a small luminous human being who was Christ himself in a pre-existent, celestial form. It is saying that Jesus Christ and the Star of Bethlehem are the same thing and Jesus Christ can transform himself into anything. The star guides them to Bethlehem and into a cave where it transforms into a human infant who tells them to go back and be preachers of the Gospel."”

Carole Mikita wrote in the Deseret News, “The most surprising point is when Christ speaks to them. Landau wrote, "So Christ, being a divine being, is able to appear as a star, that's how he first appears to the wise men, and then transforms himself into a luminous kind of, a glowing, talking infant." "This is what Christ says to the Magi when he appears," Landau said. He called this the smoking gun. He said the most important passage of the text was: "And I am everywhere because I am a ray of light, whose light has shown in this world from the majesty of my Father, who has sent me to fulfill everything that was spoken about me in the entire world and in every land by unspeakable mysteries and to accomplish the commandment by my glorious Father, who by the prophets preached about me to the contentious house in the same way as for you as befits your faith, it was revealed to you about me." In other words, the journey of faith is not simply about taking gifts to worship Christ. It is about the gifts of knowledge that Christ gives to them. [Source: Carole Mikita, Deseret News, Jan. 6, 2011]

Landau said "Revelation of the Magi" falls into the category of apocryphal writings, which many scholars and students use to broaden their understanding of the Bible or early Christianity. "I see great value in the Apocrypha," Peterson said, "and from a Latter-day Saint perspective, we're allowed to do that. We're told there are things in it that are true, things that are not, read it with discernment. But we're not told, 'don't read it.' We're not told, 'it's all false.' So, there's value to me in this kind of text." Daniel C. Peterson, professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at BYU, was also fascinated by the words of the Christ child. He said, "It talks about him having revealed himself to all nations. That in some form or another, they've all known and that is extremely striking."

Image Sources: Wikimedia, Commons

Text Sources: Wikipedia, BBC, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Live Science, Encyclopedia.com, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, Business Insider, AFP, Library of Congress, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024