Second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew
“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’”
Persia has the oldest tradition of astronomy – star-gazing – in the world. The earliest catalogues of stars dating from 1200 BC were Babylonian. The clay tablets recording observations of celestial phenomena in cuneiform writing are known as the Enuma Anu Enlil. Magi is a Persian word for priest astronomer among the Medes. These priests discerned signs and messages in stars and planets. They also navigated across deserts using the astrolabe to plot the stars.
The Magi arrive at Jerusalem and approach Herod. King Herod did not like the sound of what he heard; he didn’t want any rivals to the throne. He was informed by the Jewish teachers of the law that the prophet Micah had prophesied that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. So Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem to find the child, saying that he also would go there to worship him, although he intended nothing of the sort.
Matt 2:9 “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.”
The wise men set out again travelling south from Jerusalem towards Bethlehem. They were overjoyed to see the star ahead of them. It confirmed that they were heading in the right direction. In Bethlehem they found the baby, bowed down and offered their gifts. The three wise men were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, so they returned to their country by a different route.
Merry and True 