by Scott Christmas

Created on: December 30, 2008

Most Christians are intimately familiar with the story of the wise men from the biblical accounts of Jesus' birth. What some folks do not realize is that many of the traditions associated with the wise men do not actually come from the Bible.

In Christian circles, folks tend to imagine three kings from the Orient, each bearing a gift, arriving on camel-back to a stable over which a great glowing star has settled. In fact, this image is a complex mixture of Matthew and Luke's individual accounts, along with a few facets that do not exist in either account. They are not kings at all, nor are they "wise men." Instead, they are "Magi" - or "magicians" - and only Matthew mentions them. Furthermore, he does not tell us how many there were - three or otherwise. There are no camels in his story, and the star they follow leads them to a house, not a stable. The stable is from Luke's account - and in fact, Luke does not mention a stable either, he merely mentions a manger.

We imagine three wise men primarily because Matthew tells us they brought three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

When we look at the significance of these gifts, it helps to illumine the basis upon which Matthew built his birth story. That basis was, of course, the Jewish scriptures - or what Christians call the Old Testament.

In Isaiah chapter 60, the writer says that dignitaries will arrive to the Jewish nation to see the glory of God's light, bearing with them gold and frankincense. This same passage says that others will arrive from the land of Sheba - a land famous for its spices, the most prominent of which was myrrh.

It is clear that Matthew was basing his story of the Magi's gifts on this passage from Isaiah. Indeed, almost every detail of both Matthew and Luke's birth stories can be tied to the Old Testament. This style of writing - telling modern events through the lens of the collective cultural past - was called "midrash," and midrashic storytelling is the basis for much of what we find in the stories of the Gospels - particularly Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the virgin birth stories, and nowhere is it easier to identify than in the gifts brought by the Magi. When we read the stories of the Magi, we are not reading journalistic accounts of real events; instead, we are reading midrashic stories using familiar Jewish images to elevate the story of Jesus to epic realms. This style of creative story-telling was done to demonstrate the timeless and profound God presence met in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

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