How long did it take for the three kings to get to Jesus?

Answer 1

The Bible never mentions three kings who visited Jesus, but Matthew's Gospel does talk of magi who followed a star westward to Jerusalem then south-east to Bethlehem, where they found the baby Jesus. The word magi actually refers to Zoroastrian priests, but it is usually translated into English as 'wise men'. The wise men, in turn, are sometimes referred to as kings, but we should remember that it was the biblical author's intention to refer to them as priests.

There is no historical reference to the magi, wise men or kings, nor are they mentioned by Luke's Gospel, so we must rely solely on Matthew's Gospel for information about these people, but this Gospel does not say when the wise men or kings began their journey or when they arrived in Bethlehem. Therefore, we can not say how long their journey took.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world's Anglicans, has described the story of the three wise men as nothing but a "legend" and says there is little evidence that they existed. John Shelby Spong (Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus) calls Matthew's story of the magi, Christian midrash and says that among people he knows in New Testament circles, the universal assumption is that the magi(the kings) were not actual people. If there were no wise men, kings or magi, then we can never answer how long their journey took.