Q: Who were the first people to know about Jesus birth and how did they know? How come those people were not Jews?  —Simon

I’m a bit puzzled by your question, as Mary (Luke 1:28), Joseph (Matthew 1:20), and Elizabeth (Luke 1:41-45) knew about Jesus’ birth before it happened. They were therefore the first to know about it, and they were all Jews!

The only Gentiles  that Scripture mentions in regards to knowing about Jesus’ birth were the Magi. However we don’t know exactly when or how they first learned of His birth. Luke 2:15-16 makes it clear that the shepherds visited Mary when Jesus was a newborn. Matthew isn’t as definite about the timeframe for the arrival of the Magi. Joseph had already “taken Mary home as his wife” (Matthew 1:24), so we know it wasn’t on the night of Jesus’ birth. It probably took some time to make their journey, although we need not assume, as some have done that because Herod killed all the children two years of age and under (Matt. 2:16), Jesus must have been nearly two years old.

The word magi has a Persian origin, so we could speculate that Jewish presence in Persia acquainted the Persian intelligentsia with Hebrew religion, as well as its messianic expectations. However, magi was also a common Hellenistic term. “Magi” were often astrologers, but astrologers in ancient times were much more respectable people than the charlatans of today who go by that name. They had significant knowledge of the heavens and were probably the “astronomers” of that time. The indefinite statement that the magi were “from the East” doesn’t allow us to reach any definite conclusions concerning their origin—or how far they traveled.

There is no specific statement in the Bible about the number of wisemen who came to see the Christ-child. Since there were three gifts, it has long been assumed that three wisemen came to present gifts and to worship the new-born King. Tradition even gives them names: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. But tradition is not always based on fact.  —Dan VanderLugt

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