The wise men Where Luke has shepherds visit the baby , a symbol of Jesus’s importance for ordinary folk, Matthew has magi (wise men) from the east bring Jesus royal gifts. There were probably not three magi and they were not kings.
Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man whose name was Joseph , of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary . Having come in, the angel said to her, “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.”
Chapter 1 of Matthew’s Gospel recounts Jesus’s birth and naming and the beginning of chapter 2 states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the time of Herod the Great . Magi from the east came to Herod and asked him where they would find the King of the Jews, because they had seen his star.
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.
God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth with a message for Mary, who was promised in marriage to Joseph . The angel told Mary that she would have a son, whom she was to name Jesus. The angel said, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High God .”
And it happened that when the angels went away from them into the sky, the shepherds said one to another, “Let us go to Bethlehem, now, and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” They came with haste, and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby was lying in the feeding trough.
That Jesus was swaddled and placed in a manger might hold. Swaddling was indeed wide spread in the Roman Empire. Babies were swaddled after their first bath for about the first six weeks of their lives, then slowly unpacked, with the right hand first to ensure right-handedness.
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.
By the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized — and now also celebrated — as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor).
It’s the story that everyone knows: Jesus was born in a barn , surrounded by farm animals and shepherds, because there was no room at the inn. The word is used elsewhere in the bible as a word to mean “private upper room” where Jesus and his disciples ate the Last Supper in the Gospel of Mark.
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 .
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.
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.