Three wise men

It's taken me over 40 years for this question to dawn on me.

What was so wise about the three wise men?

Is it that they left their wives for ages to go on a pilgrimage without risk of getting into a massive row about a trivial matter about which sand dune they should have turned left at?

Perhaps it's because they had the foresight to get on the right side of the christ child while he was still a baby?

And how come there are no wise women in the story? I'd say Mary was pretty wise. I won't go into reasons why. But considering in olden days men weren't allowed to witness childbirth (except their own of course), and labour was extremely dangerous for mother and baby back then, I struggle to believe that any women present performing midwifery roles were anything less than very wise.

And assuming that there were at least as many wise women present as wise men, who thought it wise to write them out of the story?

 

They were astrologers; learned men of their time.

 

Difficult to find three wise men and a virgin these days .

 

I went to my son's school and saw a realistic portrayal of historically accurate facts about the matter.

The story gets stranger.

Apparently, it was not enough that three wise men were present and some random kings but no women. Some angels, having witnessed the birth of the christ child, went out into the countryside and informed three random shepherds. There was no explanation as to why the shepherds needed to be told.

But even more bizarrely, remembering this is a factual story, is that all the animals in the cattle shed knew that something special had happened, and burst into song.

 

HarryS . Didn't know you lived in the same Area As Me !! ..

 

Three wise men, Three?? , really Three? .

 

@shiney , I think that was 4 and twenty , who came down from Inverness.