Thirsty4Truth

When I was little I was told that there were three wise-men who came to see Jesus. In Sunday school we sang the song "We three kings..." and so on and so forth.

Much later in life I was confronted with the question "How many wise men came to see Jesus?" And I thought to myself, 'What a silly question...we all should know that there were three.' But to my surprise I discovered that there is no evidence in the Bible to back that claim up.

I studied, and studied the Bible with high hopes to find at least one verse which makes a reference of some sort that there perhaps were three wise men. Surely the church and Sunday school class couldn't have taught me wrong, could they have?

I went online and used the search engines to help me find the verse where it would talk about the three wise men; but I ended up empty handed. My faith in religious leaders was shattered, and perhaps this was God's will, because this event caused me to begin studying the Bible for myself.

So if the Bible does not state how many wise men came to see Jesus, why are we being taught that there were three? The answer is simple...it sounds good.

The Bible says the wise men came and brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (Matthew 2:11.)

So man says, there were three gifts, so there must have been three wise men; and if there were not three wise men, we'll say it anyway because it sounds good.

The story of the three wise men is also based upon an old medieval legend which states that there were three. According to this legend their names were Gaspar, the King of Tarsus who brought the myrrh; Melchior, the King of Arabia who brought the gold; and Balthasar the King of Ethiopia who brought the frankincense.

These names or kings are not found anywhere in the Bible, and did not appear anywhere in Christian writings until 500 years after the birth of Jesus.

The story of the wise men has been distorted and added to. It was the shepherds who came to see Jesus in the manger the night of his birth. And there is no mention of a star anywhere on the night when Jesus was born. (Luke 2:8-17)

Also there is no mention anywhere that the star was over the manger, but rather the star went and stood over where the young child was; and the young child was in a house at the time when the wise men came to see him, and worship him. This could have been 1-2 years after Jesus' birth. Matthew 2:1-12

The Bible also does not say that they rode in on camels. Perhaps they did, but the fact is, the Bible doesn't say, and for anyone to add that in as fact is wrong to do so.

So how many wise men were there? An honest answer is that we don't know because the Bible doesn't say.

Some scholars say that there might have been dozens if not a hundred of them who came to Bethlehem, because it was the custom of the wise men to travel in large groups.

This would almost make sense because a large group would have made a lot of noise while traveling, and thus they had to leave Bethlehem via a different route so they could escape past Herod. Whereas if there had only been three, it would have been much easier for them to return the same route and still escape past Herod.