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As soon as the God-begotten saviours were born into the world they were adored by shepherds from near by. In some cases they were also visited by wise men, or Magi, as the Persians and Brahmins called them, from far away. Sometimes the visitors were from even farther away, even angels leaving their heavenly ranks to wing their way to this rude tenement to adore its new born saviour.
Angels appeared to Confucius who was born in 598 BC as well as Christ. In both cases Magi also assembled to present their offerings to the infant God. Magi is used in the Apocryphal Gospels to designate the wise men who visited Christ at birth. Magi, Magic and Magician are derivations from the same root, all suggesting a wisdom correlated to the gods.
When Confucius was born five wise men from afar came to the house, celestial music was heard in the skies, and angels attended the scene. In Matthew the circumstances are the same (Mt 2:1). The only difference in the popular imagination is the number of wise men. Matthew does not say but popularly it is three. The Persian story also gives the number of Magi who visited the young saviour of that country as five.
Luke speaks of a multitude of the heavenly host praising God (Lk 2:13). Popularly the heavenly host was singing its praises so we have another way of saying that celestial music was heard. How complete the parallel!
Luke 2:13-15 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. 15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. (KJV)
Let us not also forget the "shepherds who watched their flocks by night," who by noticing this "announcing star." The writer of the Gospel of Luke would have us believe that these shepherds likewise were awakened to the auspicious time of the birth of the Sun-King. This star had alerted them of his birth and they knew that the Savior of Mankind was about to be born. These shepherds were attendants to a "free Heavenly concert." It makes a beautiful picture.
It goes further. Confucius, like Christ, had twelve chosen disciples. He was descended from a royal house of princes, as Christ from the royal house of David, and like Christ was born poor. He had a disagreement with a monarch and retired for a long period from society into religious contemplative seclusion. He taught the same Golden Rule of doing to others as we desire them to do toward us, and other moral maxims equal in importance to anything in the Christian scriptures.
When Chrishna, the eighth avatar of India (1200 BC), was born he was inundated in flowers by angels (gods). Pipes and drums were played in the heavens, trees blossomed and pools were filled with clear water. The room was illuminated by his light, and the countenance of his father and mother shone with its brightness and glory. They had an image of him as a king and, realizing he was the preserver of the world, they began to worship him, but like the virgin Mary quickly forgot all this and soon regarded him as an ordinary infant!
It is related in the legends of Chrishna that the divine child was cradled among shepherds, to whom were first made known the stupendous feats which stamped his character with marks of the divinity. He was recognized as the promised Savior by Nanda, a shepherd, or cowherd, and his companions, who prostrated themselves before the heaven-born child. After the birth of Chrishna, the Indian prophet Nared, having heard of his fame, visited his father and mother as Gokool, examined the stars, etc., and declared him to be of celestial descent (Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. i. pp. 129-130; Maurice, Hist. Hindostan, vol. ii. pp. 256, 257, 317; Vishnu Purana).
AEsculapius, the virgin-born Savior, was protected by goatherds (shepherds present), who, upon seeing the child, knew at once that he was divine. The voice of fame soon published the birth of this miraculous infant, upon which people flocked from all quarters to behold and worship this heaven-born child (Taylor, Diegesis, p. 150).
Many of the Grecian and Roman demi-gods and heroes were either fostered by or worshipped by shepherds. Amongst these may be mentioned Bacchus, who was educated among shepherds (Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. i. 398), and Romulus, who was found on the banks of the Tiger, and educated by shepherds (Bell, Pantheon, vol. ii. p. 213. Paris, son of Priam was educated among shepherds (Ibid. vol. i. p. 47), and AEgisthus was exposed, like AEsculapisu, by his mother, found by shepherds and educated among them (Ibid., p. 20).
In Luke's gospel an angel is reported to have saluted his mother (Lk 1:28):
Hail, thou that art highly favored; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women.
And in the next chapter the angel joins with the heavenly host in praising God. The same is found in the Ramayana, when Brahma and Siva, with a host of attending spirits, came to the mother of the eighth saviour and sang,
In thy delivery, O favored among women, all nations shall have cause to exult.
The ninth avatar of India, Buddha (600 BC), is similar. On a silver plate in a cave in India is an inscription stating that a saint in the woods, at the time of the advent of Buddha, learned by inspiration that an avatar had appeared in the house of Rajah of Lailas. He flew through the air to the place beheld the new-born saviour. He declared him to be the great avatar destined to establish a new religion.
When the fame of Pythagoras (600 BC) reached Miletas and neighboring cities, their wise men came to visit him. In the Anacalypsis Magi came from the East to offer gifts at Socrates' birth, bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh, the very same offerings given to Christ. Gold, frankincense and myrrh were traditionally offered as gifts to the sun in Persia more than three thousand years ago; and in Arabia about the same time. Zoroaster of Persia (1,000 BC), says he also was visited by Magi at his earthly advent.
Answer for yourself: And why should a skill in astrology give them the privilege of seeing the world saviour at birth while people of God's own election—His Chosen—were denied the honor?
There are so many incongruities in divine revelation that it becomes knavery to dismiss them as god's mysterious ways, as Christians and Jews do. Yet both agree that God gave us reason.
Answer for yourself: So why doesn't He expect us to use reason when He chooses to reveal something to us?
Now lets examine the astrological evidence for the "three
shepherds" from which these stories originated. The constellation of
Orion has for millennia been recognized as a group of stars which herald
the coming of 
winter,
on Dec. 22, and the birth of the Sun (Son) God, three days later. It is
the most glorious constellation in the sky! The legend of the three wise
men has, for ages, been connected with the three stars in the Belt of
Orion, Mintaka (the belt), Alnilam (string of pearls), and Alnitak (the
girdle). These three stars (three wise men) sit proximate to the celestial
equator and are easily recognizable, by all.
Answer for yourself: Can we who are "Christians" and followers of the real Yeshua be so sure that they have not been hoodwinked by anti-Semitic Gentiles who only "replayed their Sun Myths" as they played God and changed what was known once about the Rabbi from Galilee? If we can see that errors have been represented as truth in the New Testament as non-Jews changed the text of the "revelation" about Yeshua and altered the text of the documents (New Testament), then what other places could there be such gross errors as we not know it?
If you truly want the truth, and you may not, then there is so much truth to reclaim and Bet Emet stands ready to help you separate the lies from the truth in hopes your worship of the Father be in Truth and Spirit. Shalom.