Unveiling the Mystery of the Magi
In every Nativity play, the scene is identical: shepherds on one side, animals in the middle, and three men in paper crowns holding distinctively shaped boxes on the other. We know them as the "Three Wise Men" or the "Three Kings." We sing about them traversing afar, following yonder star. But if we strip away the Christmas carols and medieval art, the picture changes. The Bible never says they were kings. It never says there were three of them. And they almost certainly didn't arrive at the stable on the night of Jesus' birth. So, who were the Magi ? The search for their identity takes us out of Judea and into the mysterious world of the ancient East, into the courts of Babylon and Persia, where science, magic, and theology were one and the same. The Greek word used by Matthew is magoi (from which we get the word "magic"). However, in the ancient world, this term didn't refer to someone pulling rabbits out of hats. The Magi were a...