The Three Wise Men (Magi)
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40 free The Three Wise Men (Magi) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few figures in the Christmas story are as familiar as the Magi, and few are so thinly described. The Bible gives them only a handful of verses. It does not say how many came, what they were called or that they were kings. Almost everything else was added by centuries of legend, art and custom. This quiz covers both sides. Some questions test what the Gospel account really says about the journey, the star, the gifts and the jealous king. Others follow the Three Kings through history: relics and shrines, famous paintings, carols, stories and films, and the cakes, parades and presents of Three Kings' Day around the world. It is written for Sunday school teachers, church groups, families and anyone planning a Christmas or Three Kings quiz night. The early questions are the gentlest, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01According to the Bible's account, where did the Magi find the young Jesus and Mary when they arrived?
In a house
In a house is where the Gospel sets the meeting, with no stable or manger in sight. Nothing in the text says the Magi arrived on the night of the birth.
Q 02The Bible never says how many Magi made the journey, so which detail led tradition to settle on three?
The gifts they brought
The gifts they brought numbered three, so later readers assumed one giver for each. Some Eastern churches count twelve Magi instead.
Q 03In which city did the Magi first stop to ask where the newborn child could be found?
Jerusalem
Jerusalem was the Magi's first stop, and their question troubled the whole city. The priests and scribes consulted there pointed the travellers on to Bethlehem.
Q 04Which constellation contains a row of three bright stars nicknamed the Three Kings or the Magi?
Orion
Orion wears the three stars as a belt, a line that has also been called the Three Marys and Jacob's Staff. Their own names are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.
Q 05Which Monty Python film opens with the Three Wise Men bringing their gifts to the wrong stable?
Life of Brian
Life of Brian has its hero born in the stable next door to Jesus on the same night, which briefly fools the visitors.
Q 06The carol We Three Kings was written in 1857 by a clergyman from which country?
United States
United States clergyman John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote both words and music for a Christmas pageant at the New York seminary where he taught music.
Q 07In the short story The Gift of the Magi, what does Della sell to buy her husband a Christmas present?
Her hair
Her hair, which reached her knees, goes to a wig maker for twenty dollars. The money buys a chain for the watch that Jim has just sold to buy her a set of combs.
Q 08Which gift of the Magi was used in embalming, and so came to be read as a symbol of death?
Myrrh
Myrrh served as an embalming ointment and was burned as a penitential incense at funerals until the 15th century.
Q 09Which country stages Three Kings parades in nearly every town on the evening of 5 January?
Spain
Spain stages a Cavalcade of Magi with floats in practically every city and village, and its children traditionally open their presents the next morning rather than at Christmas.
Q 10Which ruler secretly asked the Magi to report back once they had found the newborn child?
King Herod
King Herod claimed he wanted to worship the child too, after quizzing the Magi on exactly when the star had appeared. They went home another way and never reported back.
Q 11Which of the four Gospels is the only one to tell the story of the Magi?
Matthew
Matthew alone tells of the Magi, in a dozen verses that never number them, name them or call them kings.
Q 12Western tradition names two of the Magi Caspar and Melchior; which name completes the trio?
Balthazar
Balthazar completes the trio, and painters in northern Europe showed him as a Black king from the 12th century, very commonly by the 15th.
Q 13Which Christian feast on 6 January chiefly celebrates the visit of the Magi in Western churches?
Epiphany
Epiphany treats the Magi's visit as the moment the child was first shown to the Gentiles, the world beyond Israel.
Q 21Which German city's cathedral was planned around a gilded shrine said to hold the bones of the Magi?
Cologne
Cologne received the relics in 1164, and the gilded triple sarcophagus made for them still stands behind the high altar of its cathedral.
Q 22Which Renaissance artist left unfinished the Adoration of the Magi that now hangs in the Uffizi?
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci took the commission from Augustinian monks in 1481 but left Florence a year later, with little more than the underdrawing done.
Q 23Which medieval traveller claimed to have been shown the tombs of the three Magi at Saveh in Persia?
Marco Polo
Q 14To which land did Joseph take Mary and the child after the Magi left, on an angel's warning?
Egypt
Egypt sheltered the family until the king who wanted the child dead had died himself. They then settled in Nazareth rather than return to Judea.
Q 15After finding the child, how were the Magi warned not to go back to the king who sent them?
In a dream
In a dream the Magi were told to avoid the king, so they went home by another road. His furious answer was to order the killing of Bethlehem's youngest boys.
Q 16Which title, later fixed above the cross, did the Magi use when asking where the newborn child was?
King of the Jews
King of the Jews is the outsiders' title, used by the Magi and later by Pontius Pilate on the cross, while Jesus's own followers hail him as King of Israel.
Q 17Which visitors to the manger, told of the birth by angels, never appear alongside the Magi in the Bible?
Shepherds
Shepherds and Magi come from two different Gospels and never share a scene, though nativity sets usually place them side by side at the crib.
Q 18Which American author, known for surprise endings, wrote the 1905 short story The Gift of the Magi?
O. Henry
O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, and the story reached book form a year later in his collection The Four Million.
Q 19A tiny figure of whom is baked into Mexico's rosca de reyes, the ring-shaped bread of Three Kings' Day?
The baby Jesus
The baby Jesus is hidden in the bread, and whoever finds the figure in their slice must take it to church on Candlemas or host a party that day.
Q 20What do many Latin American children leave out in a box for the Magi's camels on 5 January?
Cut grass
Cut grass or other greenery is packed into a box or a pair of shoes on the eve of Three Kings' Day, a meal for the animals after their long journey.
Marco Polo wrote that he was shown three tombs at Saveh, south of modern Tehran, when he passed through in the 1270s.
Q 24In New Orleans, which season of parades and king cake begins on Three Kings' Day, 6 January?
Carnival
Carnival in New Orleans runs from 6 January until the midnight before Ash Wednesday, so the feast of the Magi starts the countdown to Mardi Gras.
Q 25Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, an opera about the Magi, was written for which medium?
Television
Television was its stage: NBC commissioned the opera and broadcast it live on Christmas Eve 1951, the first one composed for the small screen in America.
Q 26Frankincense, the incense among the Magi's gifts, is harvested as what kind of natural substance?
Tree resin
Tree resin is the raw material: frankincense is hardened sap tapped from Boswellia trees two or three times a year, and the last taps give the best tears.
Q 27The word magi goes back to a term for the priestly caste of which ancient Persian religion?
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism had priests famed abroad for reading the stars, and the same Old Persian word later gave English both magic and magician.
Q 28In the traditional reading of the Magi's gifts, gold stands for kingship and frankincense for what?
Deity
Deity is the usual reading of the incense, though each of the gifts was also an ordinary offering of the kind made to a king.
Q 29Which Florentine banking family is portrayed in Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi?
The Medici
The Medici appear as prominent figures in the panel, and the man in a yellow cloak at its far right is widely taken to be Botticelli himself.
Q 30Which broom-riding old woman brings children gifts on 5 January after declining to join the Magi?
La Befana
La Befana told the Magi she was too busy with her chores to come along, and now she delivers gifts across Italy on the night of 5 January.