According to legend — and by legend I mean the New Testament — the newborn baby Jesus was given gifts from three wise men: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Granted, this story takes place 2000 years before the widespread popularity of Huggies and Baby Einstein, but were these practical, or even typical, gifts of the era?
Myrrh is dried tree sap. It was used for embalming, perfume, and burnt during funerals to mask the smell of the corpses.
Frankincense is also a tree resin. It was used for perfume, Egyptian art, and anointing newborns. Frankincense was supposedly one-fifth as expensive as myrrh. Did Wise Man #2 cheap out on baby Jesus, or did he bring 5 times as much?
Probably not the most practical gifts for a newborn, but then again the son of God must be tough to shop for. At least he got some gold, so he could go buy what he really wanted.
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Tags: religion
