Three Wise Men – Who Were They?

“We three kings of orient are…” unless you were raised in East London like me in which case we sing “We three kings of ory n’ tar…” In Matthew’s version of the Nativity story, there are some characters who turn up who have captured Christian imagination over the years. This article is answering a simple question – who were the wise men?

How Many Were There?

We don’t know. That was an easy answer! Almost certainly more than 3.

The only reason why we end up thinking about three wise men or three kings is because three gifts were given to Jesus (gold, frankincense, and myrrh). There could have been any number of kings or wise men, plus all their servants and helpers and slaves and animal people. You would imagine that a group of important people going on a journey would probably have quite a large group around them. So probably there were a group of ‘important’ people, plus their attendants and helpers.

Kings or Magi

Were they kings or magi (wise men)? What is the difference?

The song calls them kings. So, for most people, that settles the matter since more people sing songs than read the Bible.

The 12th day after Christmas is the feast of Epiphany, which is also called Three Kings Day. This feast marks the arrival of the ‘kings’ in Bethlehem to meet the newly born Saviour. Another example of the use of Kings.

By the fourth century, an unnamed Syrian writer had named the three gift-givers and assigned them to be the kings of three different kingdoms; Hormizdah was the King of Persia, Yazdegerd the King of Saba and Perozadh the King of Sheba.

What were they called?

However, Syriac Christians had their own names for them: Larvandad, Gushnasaph and Hormisdas. Orthodox Ethiopian Christians named them Hor, Karsudan and Basanater. The Armenian Church called them Kagpha, Badadakharida and Badadilma. It wasn’t until the sixth century that the Excerpta Latina Barbari – written in Alexandria – named them Bithisarea, Melchior and Gathaspa. These names later became Balthasar, Melchior and Gaspar (Caspar). Western rites named them Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar as kings of Arabia or Ethiopia, Persia and India.

But were they actually kings?

No.

The bible does not call them kings. It calls them magi. Why do we call them kings? We know that by the second century people were linking the magi to kings. One suggestion is that may have been a way to disassociate the magi from ideas of magic or astronomy, considered profane in early Christianity.

Matthew writes about a group of people called the Magi. So, who were the Magi?

What Are Magi?

Who and what are magi?

The Greek word used by Matthew is magi, which derives from a Persian word for men who were experts in the study of the stars, with the implication of possessing hidden wisdom and knowledge of mysteries. It is often translated as ‘wise man,’ but this misses out on some of the nuances invested in the world.

It is the word from which we get the English word magic. A magi was a ‘wise person’ who understood the stars and possessed secret knowledge of some kind. But who were they, where did they come from, and why would they be going to see Jesus be born?

Herodotus, the ancient Greek writer and the first historian, who lived more than 400 years before Christ, writes in The Histories that the magi were one of the original six tribes of the Medes. They lived in the land of Media, spanning parts of modern-day Iran and Turkey. They first appeared in the seventh century BC. Some writers consider them to be related in some way to Noah through his son Shem, who is understood to be the ancestor of the Arabs.

Others suggest that the origins of the Magi are the same as those of Abraham.

The magi are linked to a group of people called Chaldeans, and Abraham was called by God from the city of Ur, located in Chaldea. The Chaldeans and the Medes became associated with the land around the Euphrates River, where Babylon was built, the heart of the Babylonian Empire, which was later conquered by the Persians.

The Chaldeans were known as people who were intensely interested in the movement of the stars and understood the patterns and movements of stars to relate to the will and desire of the gods.

In the ancient world, there was no real distinction between a scientist, alchemist, magician, or priest. They all fulfilled the same functions and there was a high degree of crossover between them. After the Person empire conquered the Babylonian empire, it is likely that the Zoroastrian religion absorbed the Chaldean magi into their priesthood as they both emphasised the importance of portents and reading the will of the gods.

The magi we find in the Bible are likely to be related to Zoroastrian priests, skilled in dream interpretation and astrology. But where did they come from? Where they from Babylon? From further East?

Where Did They Come From?

In Matthew 2:1 it says, “ Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem.” So the magi came from the East.

But the East is a pretty big place!

The people who wrote the song talked about the ‘orient’ which was used fairly indiscriminately, and with a fair amount of inherent racism, to describe anywhere east of the Levant region. However, there are other suggestions.

Dwight Longenecker suggests the magi from the east were from the court of the Nabatean king in Petra (modern-day Jordan). Another, less popular theory, suggests they arrived from Yemen, a region where there were gold mines and boswellia and commiphora trees; the same trees used to produce frankincense and myrrh. However, the east in Bible times generally refers to the desert land east of the Jordan. Specifically, present day Saudi Arabia. This is one of the places where frankincense and myrrh were grown and produced.

For reasons that will become clear later, I think they came from what used to be Persia, probably from Babylon itself. But these people from the East followed a star in the East. So, how did they end up going West to Jerusalem?

The Star?

If the magi saw the star in the east and followed it, then they would have gone east, which was the wrong direction. So, what is going on with this?

The problem stems from the translation of “in the east”. That same phrase can also be translated as “at its rising” since stars rise in the East of the sky. The magi saw the star when it appeared. But the position and movement of the star in the sky was interpreted to mean that the saviour of the Israelites had been born and they went west to get to Jerusalem.

There have been attempts to try and find some scientific evidence for what this star could have been.

Rick Larson used NASA technology to study the positions of the stars at the time when Jesus could have been born. He discovered an extremely rare triple conjunction. The “king” star (Regulus) crosses the “king” planet (Jupiter) within the constellation of the lion (Leo), the “king” of the animals, three times. The constellation of the lion (which is called that in every language, as far back as records go) is associated with the kingly tribe of Judah.

However, I do not find this convincing. It seems to be working a bit too hard to try and make things fit together. But some are convinced by this argument.

Michael Molnar, in his book The Star of Bethlehem: the Legacy of the Magi, argues that the star had its origins in an actual astronomical event and was Jupiter, appearing as a morning star. Accordingly, he dates the nativity event to April in the year six BC. This is more likely, but again, I think it somewhat misses the point.

The star itself, or whatever it was, is not what is important. What matters is what the magi thought the star, or whatever they saw, meant.

Matthew was all about fitting the prophecies of the Old Testament to Jesus. That is why Matthew is so insistent that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, to fit the prophecy of Micah 5:2. The magi turn up in Matthew’s story not only to indicate that Jesus has come for the whole world and not only the Jewish nation. But because of a deep sense of the movement of prophecy within the Bible.

This is why Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus. Not just to demonstrate that Jesus comes from David and Abraham, that he will be a Messiah in the line of David’s throne and is the response to the covenant promise made to Abraham. But to count the number of generations.

The genealogies are presented in three blocks, each with 14 generations. Six blocks of 7. Meaning Jesus is beginning the 7th block. Which, if you were Jewish and understood your scriptures, was very significant. Not only did it link the birth of Jesus to the Torah principle of Jubilee, it also linked Jesus to Daniel.

The Magi And Daniel

To understand the impact of claiming Jesus as the Messiah, you also need to understand his relationship to the prophecies of Daniel.

The prophet Daniel (supposed to have lived between 620 and 538BC, although the book of Daniel contains elements from at least three different writers across 500 years) was taken into exile under the Babylonians and then the Persians.

In the Book of Daniel, the Persian word Magi is translated with the Hebrew word chakamim used to describe wise men who were astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. In the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar had a group of court magi whom he consulted about the future and who interpreting his dreams.

When Daniel was able to interpret the King’s dream and the magi couldn’t, Daniel was promoted to head magi. Daniel’s title was rab mag or “chief of the Magi” (Dan 5:11). The suggestion is that Daniel influenced the Magi while he was in charge of them, potentially leaving them some historical records of his writings.

While Daniel was influenced by the Magi, as seen in the kind of apocalyptic imagery that is used in the text of the Book of Daniel, which draws from Zoroastrian mythos (as does much of the post exillic writings), he also impacted the Magi through his knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures and his own understanding of God.

I think that the magi who come to Jesus are, in some sense, the descendants of Daniel.

Not biologically, but in the tradition which followed Daniel by merging together the understanding of Torah and the Prophets with the rituals and beliefs of the Magi. Specifically, I think that one of the most significant events in Daniel’s life became a guiding force for the magi who came after him. A specific prophecy about the coming of the Messiah and when that would happen.

The Weight Of Prophecy

Daniel was in receipt of a prophecy which would define Christ’s mission on earth in a way which was obvious for those in his lifetime and obscure for most Christians today.

In Jeremiah 25:9-13, God explains to Jeremiah that the exile of the Jewish people would be for 70 years. This is linked to Leviticus 25:2-7 with the warnings to the people to let the land rest fallow every 7 years and then every 49th year (7 weeks of years, or 7×7) slaves are to be released and debts are to be forgiven.

The prophecy warned that the land would be barren and the Jews would serve the king of Babylon if they did not keep this command. It is suggested that the Jeremiah prophecy began around 609 BC when Babylon came to power and ended in 583 BC when the Persians conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem.

However, Daniel is still in exile after those 70 years have passed. As are other Jews. So, something was not quite right. In Daniel 9, God reveals a new prophecy to Daniel. The exile will not end in 70 years, but 70 weeks of years. That is, 70×7. This is a 490-year period.

Every 7 years, the land is to rest. Every 49 years, slaves are set free, and debts are repaid. Then, after 490 years, the exile will come to an end through the coming of the Messiah and the redemption of the humanity of sin through a new covenant made by the Messiah.

The 490-year period is thought to have begun in the year 445 BC when Artaxerxes, the King of Persia, gave Nehemiah the required order to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. (Nehemiah 2:1-8). 490 years later, Jesus is born, and Daniel’s descendants, the Magi, are there to witness the completion and fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy.

The Magi are link back to Daniel, to the exile, and most importantly, to the underpinning theology of Jesus’s mission – to bring humanity out of their exile, to redeem them from sin, to establish a new covenant, and to bring about the end of the redemption history which began with the covenant made with Abraham and concludes with the covenant made by Jesus.

Conclusion

What began as a question about some blokes who turned up with some presents for Jesus ended up with a way of understanding who Jesus was and what Jesus was doing. Matthew’s inclusion of the Magi was not random.

It was a link back to the ancient mysteries of God in the world, between sacred prophecy and the life and mission of Jesus. Without the Magi, we would miss much of the story. But without a deep knowledge of scripture, without understanding the history and the context of what the writers were drawing on, it would be missed.

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