Who were the wise men who visited Jesus?

The short answer

Matthew calls them “wise men from the east.” They came looking for a newborn king and brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Matthew gives no number and no names, and he doesn’t call them kings. Those details came later.

What the record says

Only Matthew tells this story:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him.”

Matthew 2:1 to 2

The word behind “wise men” is magi. In that world it often meant learned men who studied the stars, from lands to the east such as Persia or Babylon.

When they found the child, Matthew says:

They came into the house and saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Opening their treasures, they offered to him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Matthew 2:11

Matthew says a house and a young child, so the visit may have come some time after the birth. The number three likely comes from the three gifts. The familiar names Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar come from church tradition centuries later, not from the Bible.

How Son of Man tells it

Son of Man is a novel. It imagines the years the Gospels skip. In the novel he goes by Yeshua, the name his family would have called him. In chapter one, Bethlehem, three travelers named Ardnon, Kaspar and Balthazar have spent weeks in Jerusalem being sent from one priest to the next. They are ready to turn home toward Ur when a priest named Zacharias tells them where to look. Yeshua is nearly three weeks old. Joseph opens the door with an adze in his hand and asks what they want with his son.

“And if he’s just a child?”

Ardnon looked back at the carpenter.

“Then a child will have the gifts.”