According to the Gospel of Matthew, the men found the divine child in Bethlehem by following the North Star across the desert. According to later writings, the Kings (Melchior from Europe, Caspar from Arabia, and Balthazar from Africa) arrived twelve days after Jesus’ birth.
So we know from this that Jesus was 7 + 33 = 40 days old at the time of this ceremony.
They have become known most commonly as Balthasar , Melchior , and Gaspar (or Casper). According to Western church tradition, Balthasar is often represented as a king of Arabia or sometimes Ethiopia, Melchior as a king of Persia, and Gaspar as a king of India.
Bright stars top Christmas trees in Christian homes around much of the world. The faithful sing about the “ Star of Wonder” that guided the wise men to a manger in the little town of Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.
In the mountains of ancient Persia, lived Artaban, whose study of the planets and the stars led him to predict the birth of the King of Kings.
Matthew calls the visitors “Magi” (wise men) and they may well have been astrologers , following the sign of a special star in the sky. They probably came from Persia . The Magi could have come to visit weeks or even months after the shepherds visited , when Mary and Joseph had found accommodation in a house (verse 11).
Jesus at the age of twelve accompanies Mary and Joseph, and a large group of their relatives and friends to Jerusalem on pilgrimage, “according to the custom” – that is, Passover. On the day of their return, Jesus “lingered” in the Temple, but Mary and Joseph thought that he was among their group.
The Virgin Mary, pregnant with the son of God, would hence have given birth to Jesus nine months later on the winter solstice. From Rome, the Christ’s Nativity celebration spread to other Christian churches to the west and east, and soon most Christians were celebrating Christ’s birth on December 25 .
Mary Magdalene as trusted disciple For its part, the Bible gave no hint that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s wife . None of the four canonical gospels suggests that sort of relationship, even though they list the women who travel with Jesus and in some cases include their husbands’ names.
The wise men brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to the newborn king . Gold, of course, was valuable as currency. Frankincense is a valuable perfume. Myrrh is a precious ointment often used in the burial process.
Magi (/ˈmeɪdʒaɪ/; singular magus /ˈmeɪɡəs/; from Latin magus) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great , known as the Behistun Inscription.
Later tellings of the story identified the magi by name and identified their lands of origin: Melchior hailed from Persia , Gaspar (also called “Caspar” or “Jaspar”) from India , and Balthazar from Arabia.
Star of David – The Jewish symbol of King David , which the Star of Bethlehem is often associated with having been a miraculous appearance of.
The Magi are popularly referred to as wise men and kings. The word magi is the plural of Latin magus, borrowed from Greek μάγος (magos), as used in the original Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew (in the plural: μάγοι, magoi).
Explanation 4: the Christmas star was a stationary point of Jupiter . Jupiter , in its apparent path across the sky, is generally seen to move from east to west across the starry background.