As one newpaper headline puts it, “The Three Fairly Sagacious Persons.”
The Church of England has decided that the three wise men who followed the star to Bethlehem bearing gifts for the baby Jesus may not have been all that wise — or even men.
The revision committee said: “While it seems very unlikely that these Persian court officials were female, the possibility that one or more of the Magi were female cannot be excluded completely.”
There is no theological dispute about the gifts they brought — gold, frankincense and myrrh — but the prayer has been changed to use the word Magi on the grounds that “the visitors were not necessarily wise and not necessarily men.”
See the report from CNN.com.