What is the significance of the magi visit to Jesus?

A:The visit of the magi ("wise men") can only be found in Matthew's Gospel and, according to John Shelby Spong (Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus), the universal assumption among people in New Testament circles is that they were not actual people - Matthew was writing Christian midrash.

The magi were important to Matthew's account, as they enabled him to explain the flight to Egypt and thus allow him to draw parallels between Moses and Jesus. They were also significant as the magi were priests of the Zoroastrian religion of the Persians, who believed that the Saoshyant would be born of a virgin and help defeat evil in this world. Matthew knew that his readers, being familiar with Zoroastrianism, would draw a parallel here, and he showed that the priests of this great religion came to worship Jesus.