Thought-provoking, laugh-provoking, yet an often hellish adventure. It will probably cause a crunchy cassock-ripping rumble at the next Vatican rethink-tank meet."

-MARTIN AMIS

In the thirteenth century, Marco Polo documented a very different story of the Magi. Instead of three kings, there were only two Magi-priests of the ancient Persian religion Zoroastrianism-and they gathered at a fortresslike structure in the mountains to await the birth of a prophet. Inspired by Polo's version of events, writer Paul William Roberts set out to follow in the footsteps of the Magi. With an ill-tempered and hypoglycemic Iranian named Reza as a guide, Roberts weaves the journey of the Magi with a contemporary journey overland-by car and by camel-from Iran to Bethlehem in an unforgettable adventure through the legend and lore surrounding the birth of Jesus.

"He leaves the reader's mind bent in two, numbed by an avalanche of new perspectives on the familiar and at the same time filled with wonder that they all might be true."

-New York Times

"Engaging...provocative."

-Booklist

"I cannot recommend this book too highly: it is not only an outrageously funny travel narrative-the funniest I've read in years but also a work of radical scholarship that challenges and enlarges our readings of the gospels. And, in the midst of giving us the zestiest and most humane account of contemporary Iran I levour, it rises at moments to eloquent exultation. Rare is the book that works so well on so many different levels all at once.

-PICO IYER