Church of England questions sex of three wise men

London, Feb. 10 (CWNews.com)
The Church of England has challenged the traditional belief that three wise men travelled from the East to the manger at Bethlehem.

The church's General Synod has decided that "the visitors were not necessarily wise and not necessarily men."

Authorizing a new set of prayers for use in church services, the Synod decreed that the three wise men-- as they are called in the ancient King James translation of the Bible-- must henceforth be referred to as "Magi".

The argument is that there is no biblical evidence that were three visitors or that they were indeed men.

The Synod's revision committee argued that the original Greek, magos/magoi was a transliteration of the name of an official in the Persian court. They say St. Matthew deliberately used an exotic word to emphasize the exotic nature of the visitors to Jesus.

In its report the committee says, "To translate the term into something more universally understood (as the Authorized Version did) is to miss the point being made. Further, while it seems very unlikely that these Persian court officials were female, the possibility that one or more of the magoi were female cannot be excluded completely."

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