“The magi, as you know, were wise men — wonderfully wise men — who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were ...

To answer that question, let’s go back more than 2,000 years to the originators of the holiday gift-giving tradition: the three wise men. The Bible ... fingers clean and free for gaming.

In the estimation of Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian these gifts were particularly Arabian in nature. Martin Luther agreed. He writes concerning the wise men, “At first they ...

Matthew’s word Magi is a vague clue, since it can mean astronomers, wise men or magicians and was applied to people from all over. The gifts they bore–gold, frankincense and myrrh–hint at ...

Menotti wrote the opera for an NBC broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1951, and its story about a shepherd boy and the Bible’s Three Wise Men is “lovely ... will play the gift-bearing kings.