Who Are the Magi From the Christmas Story?
In church Christmas pageants, there usually are people dressed up as some of the “side characters” including the shepherds and the wise men. The shepherds are fairly easy to understand but were these wise men or magi?
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ (Matthew 2:1-2)
The Greek word that is translated as wise men is magi, magus in the singular. While that word might give us a clue, in some ways it makes things more confusing.
One of the issues is that magi is a technical term for a priest in the Zoroastrian religion from Persia, modern Iran. Were these wise men Zoroastrians? We cannot really know. It is very likely that there had been contact between Jews and Zoroastrians.
This is difficult to say with certainty because magi had expanded beyond the literal meaning of priest and had come to refer to someone who uses magic. You can see how the word magic comes from magi. There is a Simon in Acts 8 who was known to use magic and later became known as Simon Magus.
So these Magi could have been Zoroastrian priests or just individuals skilled in what we would might describe as magic. Either option seems strange for visitors looking for the Jewish Messiah.
I think this is part of Matthew’s attempt to stretch his Jewish audience. In the genealogy in Matthew 1, Matthew includes four women. That is strange enough, but all four are Gentiles. Then we have these Gentile magi coming to see the infant Jesus. The audience is meant to be shocked at this.
Two other things need to be said about the magi.
One is that Matthew never says that there were only three. There were three types of gifts but we are told nothing further than there was more than one.
The other thing is that we are not told when this visit took place. It does not seem to be on the same night as the shepherds, no disrespect to manger scenes. Herod ends up killing the children of Bethlehem under the age of two. That does not necessarily mean that Jesus was that old at the event.
What do we know about the magi? Not a lot.
All we know about these wise men is that they came from the east, they followed the star, they brought gifts, and they were most likely Gentiles. Anything else is speculation.
