Where did the wisemen start their journey?

Answer 1

We simply do not know. However, we can make a good guess based on the account in Matthew's gospel.

In Matthew Chapter 2 he writes:

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

Some interpreters have ignored the first sentence of Matthew's account and have claimed that the wise men ('magi') saw his star "in the east" - meaning that the star was in the eastern sky and so they had to travel from the west to see Jesus. Therefore the claim is that the magi came from Africa. However, we know that the first sentence wasn't added or altered in the original Greek, and so it makes it perfectly clear that the magi themselves came from the east, and they saw the star on their journey from the east.

This makes perfect sense in that the 'star' would appear to move from east to west in the sky because of the earth's rotation as it appeared, then, to guide them to, at first, Jerusalem and then, after being instructed by Herod's advisors, Bethlehem.

We know categorically that the Arabs of this time were excellent astronomers. They named most of the visible stars (star names like Sirius, Aldebaran, Vega and so on are all Arabic) and would have known the major star patterns which would be very much like today's pattern. Therefore, the 'star' must have been rather unusual to cause them to journey for so long. Many think that a conjunction (an apparent coming together in the sky) of the planets Jupiter, Mars and Venus around 2-3BC (which has been confirmed by using modern computer simulations) would be a spectacular and rare enough occurrence (once every 3000 years or so) to warrant the attention of the magi, and to the naked eye these three planets would appear as one very bright 'star'. Considering that Jesus was probably born in 4BC, and working on the journey of the magi to arrive when Jesus was a toddler (as Herod killed all boys 2 years and under to try to rid himself of Jesus) we can get an idea of just how far they must have travelled.

Therefore it is probable that the magi were Arabs, and must have come from no farther than India, and, more likely from the areas occupied by the modern states of Iran or Iraq.

Answer 2

The Bible doesn't say where they started specifically, all it says is that they came from the north. They traveled west to see Jesus.