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Who made the wisemen so wise?
        A never-miss prophet of God, that's who!  So says the Bible, which
        tells how the wisest of the wise paved the way for the magi's visit
                      By Rev. Rusty Weller
     Again and again I've asked the question while pondering the Christmas story. Come on, you have too:
     Why were the "wisemen" so wise?
     Fools in the world's eyes, the magi apparently dropped everything, loaded precious gifts on camels and risked their lives to follow what must have been a scary supernatural phenomenon for hundreds of miles.
     And for what? To bow down and worship the baby heir of a deposed family line in a lesser kingdom far away from their home.
     The magi are mentioned only in Matthew chapter 2, an account that leaves us wanting to know more. Except for the inaccuracy of tradition, many scholars claim that's all the Bible says about the magi.
     But Scripture sheds additional light elsewhere that makes the magi's actions understandable. Before looking at what the magi really were, let's look at what they weren't.
     According to tradition, their names are Gaspar, Balthasar and Melchior. They supposedly were kings in asian countries. Folk lore sets their ages at Jesus' birth as 20, 40 and 60, their skin color as white, black and brown. Yet no names or ages or races of the magi are mentioned in the Bible.
     God's Word doesn't say how many visited Bethlehem, either. Magi is plural, so we know there were more than one. People say three wisemen because that's how many gifts are mentioned.
     Magi doesn't mean king, just a royal advisor at best. In the oldest and best Greek manuscripts, it's magoi, a Persian word from which we get our words magic and magician. As a profession, magi generally were occultic sages who typically came from Persia or Babylon, located directly east of Jerusalem. Traditionally viewed as gentiles skilled in astrology and astronomy, they supposedly were masters at dream interpretation and the black arts.
     So, to the Jews, magi were terrible sinners, the epitome of evil -- magicians, sorcerers, diviners deserving to be stoned.
     But not all wisemen were bad. Some, in fact, were a Godly remnant keeping alive faith in a Messiah who would save the world from sin.

  NEXT: the greatest magi of them all! 
 
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