It occurs on January 6 . The arrival of the magi is written about in the Bible’s Gospel of Matthew, which says that Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar traveled for 12 days to reach Jesus. They each brought a unique gift.
V: “This province is called Tarshish, from which came the Three Wise Kings , and they came to Bethlehem in Judaea with their gifts and worshipped Jesus Christ , and they are entombed in the city of Cologne two days journey from Bruges.”
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.
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.
Herod , byname Herod the Great , Latin Herodes Magnus, (born 73 bce—died March/April, 4 bce, Jericho, Judaea), Roman-appointed king of Judaea (37–4 bce), who built many fortresses, aqueducts, theatres, and other public buildings and generally raised the prosperity of his land but who was the centre of political and
The Gospel of Mark (6:3) and the Gospel of Matthew (13:55–56) mention James, Joseph/Joses, Judas/Jude and Simon as brothers of Jesus , the son of Mary.
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 .
Using these methods, most scholars assume a date of birth between 6 and 4 BC, and that Jesus’ preaching began around AD 27–29 and lasted one to three years . They calculate the death of Jesus as having taken place between AD 30 and 36.
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.
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.
They travelled by horse, camel, and elephant (respectively) to present the newborn baby Jesus with three symbolic gifts: gold, because Jesus was royalty as ” King of the Jews;” frankincense, which represented the baby’s holy nature as the Son of God; and myrrh to signify Jesus ‘ mortality.
Saint Balthazar; also called Balthasar, Balthassar, and Bithisarea, was according to tradition one of the biblical Magi along with Caspar and Melchior who visited the infant Jesus after he was born. Balthazar is traditionally referred to as the King of Macedonia and gave the gift of myrrh to Jesus.
Myrrh was an ingredient of Ketoret: the consecrated incense used in the First and Second Temples at Jerusalem, as described in the Hebrew Bible and Talmud. Myrrh is also listed as an ingredient in the holy anointing oil used to anoint the tabernacle, high priests and kings.
Myrrh is a reddish-brown dried sap from a thorny tree — Commiphora myrrha, also known as C. molmol — that is native to northeastern Africa and southwest Asia ( 1 , 2). A steam distillation process is used to extract myrrh essential oil, which is amber to brown in color and has an earthy scent (3).