J6! Today is #Loppiainen (Epiphany), a national holiday here in 🇫🇮 It is also the last day of the Christmas holidays this side of the world ❄️
I reckon, Epiphany Day was mentioned in all the 4 canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the NT Bible. It is also cited in the non-canonical "secret gospels" like the Nazarenes. Christmas Day was actually mentioned only in 2 gospel accounts, in Matthew and Luke.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the Day of Epiphany tells about the visit of the Magi or learned men from the East to honor and give gifts to the baby Jesus.
The gospel did not specifically mention though that there were 3 visitors, but 'twas implied by Bible readers to be 3, representing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
The narrative that these visitors were 3 "kings" only came about during the medieval times. But in ancient times, these men who visited Jesus were known to be magi. As it is written in the sacred scriptures.
Who are these magi (where we derived the word magi-cians)? I reckon, they were Zoroastrian sages, priests, learned men, wise men from Persia, the empire founded by Cyrus the Great, the people's liberator and god's annointed one (Isaiah 45:1) ☀️
These Persian Zoroastrian priests-magi studied philosophy and history, science, maths and medicine, esoterica, astrology and astronomy, and as such they knew about the Jewish prophesy and the star of Bethlehem ✨
Speaking of Persia, I reckon, their calendar is more scientifically-astronomically correct calendar. More accurate than the Gregorian/Julian Roman Christian caledar, Jewish calendar, Islamic calendar, Hindu, Buddhist, and Chinese calendar.
Personally, I start my new year's day based on Nowruz, the ancient Persian calendar which starts exactly on Spring Equinox, March 21 🌱 Hence, from January to March, I celebrate "3 New Year's Day " (Gregorian, Nongli, Nowruz). Practically 3x beneficial to get my year on correct settings, properly positioned to receive the bountiful blessings of the #NewYear :)