Christmas cards often show three kings on camels, traveling trackless sand dunes, alone in the night, following a star in the sky. Is that scriptural? Saint Matthew writes:

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” Read on…

The evangelist mentions three kinds of gifts — gold, myrrh and frankincense — but never mentions the number of the Magi. However many there were, who were they?

Magi were the priestly caste of the Persians’ ancient religion. The camel had been domesticated millennia before Christ’s birth, but Persian VIPs didn’t need to ride those nasty, vicious, stinky, ungainly animals; the Persians’ pride was their horses (this is long before Islam, and centuries before anyone called them Arabian horses.)

The trip from Persepolis to Judea is just over 1,000 miles as the crow flies, at least a three-month journey on foot; these Parsi priests aren’t about to travel that distance alone, or across a trackless waste. Travelers hired or joined caravans, for professional protection and expert guides along the established trade routes of the Silk Road. These roads brought many traders and officials along the Hellenized, settled routes leading through Mesopotamia and Syria, to the cities of Roman Judea.

Jews have never been shy about practicing and discussing their distinctive faith, and it was during the Babylonian/Persian captivity that the fierce, exclusive monotheism of later Judaism emerged as the defining characteristic of Jewish religion(s). And a significant Jewish population never left Babylon when Nehemiah, Ezra and the rest returned to Jerusalem. After the Persians conquered Babylon, it would be surprising if Jewish rabbis didn’t interact with Parsi priests and philosophers as they did with Hellenic and Asian ones elsewhere. If nothing else, both Kosher and Aryan purity laws are both quite strict, so during and long after the 70-year exile in Babylon, food merchants, house builders, and animal vendors would all be learning how to sell to the Jewish demographic. And the Jews’ monotheism in contrast to the Parsis’ dualism must have made for fascinating debates.

After the Jews returned from Persia to Judea, Messianic expectation began growing. Meanwhile the Parsis were developing their own belief in a coming savior, Saoshyant, who they believed would be born of a virgin. If the Magi learned — whether through astrology or divine revelation — that the Savior was about to be born in the far west, they might well have assumed that the Jews in Judaea — who also expected a Savior — would know where He’d been born.

So picture a significant caravan with guards, carters, merchants and fellow-travelers accompanying a delegation of Parsi priests along the west end of the Silk Road, finally arriving in Caesarea at the court of the Edomite King Herod, whom the Romans had made King of the Jews.

Here’s a good survey about the Biblical Magi.