Could the three wise men have been Nephites?

I've wondered - especially what with the "following the star" as stars are well-known navigational points for sailors......

from the scriptures it is apparent that the wise men did not arrive on the night of the Messiah's birth.

~immediately following the visit of the wise men Joseph was warned by an angel to take Mary and the young child to Egypt to escape Herod's wrath, and they left quickly in the night.

~but before they left - @least 3 things had already happened.

1. Jesus had been circumcised and named on the eighth day after his birth.

2. Jesus was presented @temple with sacrifices as the law required (after mary's purification (which goes an additional 33 days after the circumcision)

3. joseph, mary and the babe had returned to nazareth. so the wise men had to have come long after the night of his birth.

and the BoM gives some clues as well......they knew --- 3Nephi 1:12 and 1Nephi 3:4, Alma 5:19 (consider - if the wise men came from the americas they would have been unaware of micah's prophecy (written long after lehi left) but having a knowledge of alma's prediction would have come to jerusalem.) Heleman 5:55 Heleman 5:56-59 Heleman 5:126 and Heleman 5:125-126. (samuel's prophecy began to be fulfilled in the 90th year of the reign of judges- which was the 600th year since lehi left)(compare 1Nephi 3:4).

so you have samuel (Heleman 5:119-120) disappearing, and nephi, the leader of the church, who just gave his son charge of all those sacred things and records which had been kept since they left jerusalem --- and departed from the land for some purpose not revealed in the scriptures (3 Nephi 1:23, 46) and lehi, although not specifically named as leaving the land, is never referred to again either.

and there is the prophecy of zoroaster - which would have them sailing across the pacific to china and then up through persia on their way (which would also be a nice place to pick up "gifts" of the sort recorded as delivered by the wise men.....and interestingly enough - legend holds that one of them was "darker skinned".

so I guess yea......the scriptural record combined with historical accounts makes it well within the realm of possibility.

lol,

That's a theory I've tossed around in my head too. It's possible, given the events from the Book of Mormon, and the fact that the wise men didn't probably show up for a year or two after the birth of Christ.

1. The general Book of Mormon population knew about Christ and when he was going to be born -- Samuel the Lamanite gave some pretty specific prophecies about it, 5 years before it happened, and when Christ was born, there was the one night that was light like a day. Everybody knew after that.

2. It says they came from the East, and that's certainly a possibility if they followed the same proposed route that Lehi took on his journey to the Americas.

3. I would think their were probably some Nephites who wanted to see him, and not wait the 30+ years for Christ to come to them. I know I might have considered it myself.

4. Hagar built ships capable of extended trips too. Perhaps some of his knowledge remained (it was still relatively recent history for them) that helped build a ship that could get back to the Old World.

It would be absolutely awesome if they were.

No

The "Three Nephites" were not designated until after Christ's resurrection and the wise men coming from the east were present shortly after the birth of Christ.

There is no reason to suppose that some random Nephites came back to Jerusalem from America in order to see the Savior's birth. Nowhere is that ever hinted at, in scripture or modern revelation.

What the story of the wise men tells us is that there are others in God's vineyard, meaning the world, who had the scriptures from prophets that we still have no knowledge of their history and records. This supports what the Book of Mormon tells us about all the nations of the world shall have the gospel and shall write it and eventually all nations will have the record of all nations. The origins of the wise men is lost in history. We can be assured that they had prophets and revelation to guide them to what they found. They could have come from one of the lost tribes that were carried away by the Assyrians in 729-710 b.c.

It is not known.

Not really. In my line of thinking, the Three Nephites were not given their status until AFTER Christ was resurrected and appeared in the Americas. And if the argument was used that they could have recrossed the ocean back to the Holy Land, then ANYONE could have been the 3 that did that, not just the Three Nephites.

I've wondered if one of the 'wise men' was actually Samuel the Lamanite. I know, for me - had I known the Savior would be in a certain place in 5 years, I would have walked around the world to get there....

Considering the archeological evidence that trade between brazil & africa occurred, it makes sense to me that Samuel could have made the journey.

Btw - the KJV reads that the wise men saw a star in the east - thus, they would have been in the west. Coming from africa or europe, not asia. Recalling the evidence of covenant peoples beyond the Israelites [remember that Joseph, Jacob's son, married a woman who was not of Israel, but her father was a high priest and they were part of the covenant people]

It makes sense to me that Samuel, during his journey, could have shared his prophecies with others as the Lord directed/prompted and others, believing the prophecies and understanding the scriptures & traditions, accompanied him.

best wishes

oooh, phrog, you've done it again - i'm gonna have to go look into and ponder Nephi the elder again :)

btw - the number of 'wise men' is unknown. The there were three kinds of gifts given - but we don't know the number of 'wise men' - the '3' comes from the # of gifts and created the tradition

Thought of this too but finally dismissed it as not possible, for if it is as popular thought than at least one of them was colored, and until very recently black men could not hold the priesthood and wouldn't the Nephites most surely be priesthood holders?( Going to give you the answer that surely those like JulyMood would give you. Actually, yes it is very possible, and the ***** thing is just a red herring but then so are most things she posts.

NO...well maybe the Laminites. or of course I could have it wrong, but no Nephites left the Americas after they arrived and got named Nephites, save a precious few whom were granted extinsions in mortallity

Perhaps.

But isn't it far more likely they were figments of Saul's imagination? Don't you find it just a LITTLE odd that there existed a legend in the Middle East about 2,000 ago that many hundreds of years before THAT, a man named "Mithra" was born to a virgin, in a cave, and was visited by "Three Wise Men" who brought him gifts? (I'll let YOU guess what those gifts were!). Mithra was allegedly later put to death, and then ROSE from the dead....sound at all familiar?

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa1.htm

wow phrog.

I've never heard that idea before - but that makes some sense - about the star and oceanic navigations and all....and one does have to wonder why it took them two years to show up if all they had to do was "follow the star".

That's what Mormons believe. The Magi, which are never numbered in the Bible, were actually Zoroastrian priests. Being wise, I am sure they renounced Ahura-Mazda and became evangelical Christians immediately. Otherwise, Hell's got some gold, frankincense and myrrh.