[attiladhun2]

What wise men? They were magoi not magi. The Magoi were high officials of the Parthian Empire. A large delegation probably visited Jerusalem, and they rode on horses, not camels, since the Parthians were horse breeders par excellent.

[NavyCanDo]

“What wise men? They were magoi not magi. The Magoi were high officials of the Parthian Empire. A large delegation probably visited Jerusalem, and they rode on horses, not camels, since the Parthians were horse breeders par excellent.”

Must drive you nuts when the “We Three Kings” song comes on the radio. Your point is well taken though. Somewhere along the time line of Christianity the true story of these three men and their journey to find Jesus, was twisted badly.

[dangus]

Chill. “Magi” is just an Anglicization of “Magoi,” used to instruct one using English phonemes of the soft “g.” I’m not sure how you think your description varies from tradition, other than what you suppose they rode in on; Any camel is just an artistic extrapolation of what some latter-day romanticist supposed a Middle-Easterner rode in on. The Magi are recognized as Persian throughout Christianity, although a romanticization of them representing the three races became popular in art in the modern era; this is, of course, fictitious, but probably stems from a supposition that they fulfill the prophesy of 60:3.

For whatever reason, they have nearly always been represented as a trio, in every Christian culture, from the Ethiopian Copts, to the Far Eastern Thomists, to the Eastern Orthodox, to the Catholics, so it’s likely there were actually three of them, although in some ancient texts, there are as many as twelve.

[blackpacific]

Anne Catherine Emmerich has a pretty good description of what their journey was like. When I read her account, I imagined a Spielberg movie with a John Williams score to go with it. A truly epic journey.

But that private revelation aside, the more you look at the early Christians, the more you realize that the family of God is one, that the Catholic church is the real deal, and evidence of this is indicated by where all the significant artifacts from the early Church are located.

[ElkGroveDan]

What wise men? They were magoi not magi. The Magoi were high officials of the Parthian Empire

Imagine that. All of Western Civilization got it wrong until you came along and cleared things up.

Let me guess. You are a high school history teacher and will tell us that the Founding Fathers were all criminals and swindlers and Washington was really a Hessian mercenary, and Lincoln was gay, and Thomas Edison stole his inventions from assistants, and the US military knew about Pearl Harbor in advance but wanted to go to war with Japan so they let it happen...etc. etc...

It's known as deconstructionism, and we've heard it all before.