Over the last couple of conversations, we've worked on who this Harrid guy is, where he fits in the story, where did he come from historically, what would be his motivations, and what we see is kind of a deranged weirdo who would have imposter syndrome, wouldn't really be able to make a good case for why he's actually where he is, and the people who put him in power quickly thereafter died. So the dude's erratic and weird and threatened and paranoid. And along come these magi from the east. And the story goes like this: verse one After Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Judea during the time of King Herod, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem and asked, Where's the one who's been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the East and have come to worship him. All right, so we got a couple questions here. What's the deal with the magi? What's the deal with the star? And as we get into that, I'm super happy to be able to say once again, just in passing here, that this week of the podcast is sponsored by Dwell. It's an audio Bible app. You can get it on your iPhone, your Android. It's awesome. They got a free trial. Just go search it either place. Check it out. I think it dovetails really beautifully with what we're doing on this podcast. So who are the magi? These sound like LARPing characters or something out of Final Fantasy because it has magic in the name, right? So, I mean, literally, magi is plural of the Latin megus or the Greek word, I think it's megas, almost the same thing. But it's refers to somebody who literally does magic for a living. They get paid to sorcerize. Now, I don't know if this ever actually worked or not, but over on the YouTube channel, I did a whole bunch in one episode on the ancient magical practices and some of the old magic scrolls and books that have been unearthed that were in use. And it's just fascinating. There was magic that was done to hex opponents in sports or politics to make somebody love you who maybe wouldn't love you otherwise. I mean, this is crazy stuff. There were potioners. And look, I mean, I'm sure some people would be like, yeah, and that's demonic. And there was actual spiritual power behind that. Maybe. I'm sure other people would look at it with a little more skeptical point of view, like me, and say, I don't know, it seems like that probably wouldn't be a thing. But at the same time, there is something I really believe in, and that is the market. The market usually tells the truth. And if people are paying money for something, it's usually because it actually does provide some kind of service in their mind. And so if this was a profession all over the classical world, I can at least say this: people with money from all different social classes believed that it did something and that there was some kind of power behind it. And you get the impression reading between the lines of the text that Christians and Jews, Hebrews, Israelites believed that there was something to this because there were prohibitions involving participating in this kind of stuff. So, on the one hand, when we talk about magi, we're talking about something that just isn't very good, isn't viewed very positively in the rest of the Bible. I mean, if you want to know how people think about it even today and how they read the Bible, bring up Harry Potter with the wrong person. I know some of you are upset that I haven't bring it up here because it's witchcraft, it's wizardry, and uh, I don't know, I don't feel quite as strongly about that as some of you might. I think we can get along and agree to disagree. So maybe these guys actually were tapped into some kind of weird power that I don't understand and am skeptical of existing. Maybe they were really just clever charlatans, or maybe these weren't the kind of magi that did magic tricks and cast spells on people. Maybe this was the branch of magic that involved astrology. And that seems more likely because they're looking at stars. Now, astrology was its own subcamp of magic, spells, potions, incantations, things like this, and people who could read omens. Now, some diviners were good at reading certain types of omens, bones, guts, tea leaves, whatever it might be. Others found their inspiration in the stars. And ancient astrology is a really interesting discipline because a whole lot of what we now call astronomy is born out of stuff that ancient astrologers figured out and did the math on. What I think I can say absolutely for sure from looking at the text here is that these guys definitely were not kings. It would seem that that was some later Christian misunderstanding or tradition that emerged. Maybe Christians were so troubled that these guys were some sort of astrology wizards that they really didn't want that as part of their brand. And so they rebranded these guys as kings. I don't know, but it really should be we three space wizards of Orientar, not we three kings. Also, chronologically, we're a little screwed up with our major scenes. These guys wouldn't have been present until much later after the fact, which also gives us the impression that Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem for a little bit longer than we sometimes imagine. Probably the shepherds and angels and wise men, the magi, were not all gathered around the baby Jesus crib at the same time. Probably the Magi were hanging out with toddler Jesus or something more like that. I think we have enough contextual evidence to say, oh, these were these kind of people from the ancient world who we know about from other places. Now, there have been several smart people over the years who've looked at this and said, this is apocryphal. There's no way that someone wealthy enough to make this trip, let alone a wealthy space wizard from another country, is gonna journey overland to go see a baby. It just, it's impractical. It doesn't make sense. The traditions would be so different, nobody would be looking for a baby cross-culturally. But I think there's a problem with that argument, and that is that we definitely have late first, early second century confirmation that at exactly the time the whole Jesus thing is happening, there is this rumor floating around, some prophecy alluded to by secular sources, Tacitus and Suetonius, two Roman historians, that say there was some kind of prophecy that was known in the East that a power was going to rise up out of Judea. Now, both of these guys are writing sycophantic hagiographies in honor of these sainted god emperors. And in the case of Seutonius, we're talking about stuff that he wrote about the Emperor Vespasian. And I went and just pulled up the actual text because I thought it would be way more fun for you to hear the real thing. It goes like this. So Suetonius's take is there was this old prophecy. The fulfillment of the prophecy is Vespasian because look how awesome he is, and his descendants maybe pay my bills a little bit. And it doesn't really benefit me to criticize Roman emperors living or dead at this point in my life. But he suggests that the people of Judea tried to hijack this prophecy and that they revolted because of it. Now, the historical record doesn't add up with Jesus here, because the people of Judea certainly didn't sign up for Jesus as the fulfillment of this prophecy and then go to kill Rome. That was a very different crowd that led this whole rebellion thing. Tacitus confirms the same deal. It's in his annals. It's, I don't know, what am I in? Book five here. I should have looked this up first. I definitely have it. Yeah, here we go. Uh few interpreted these omens as fearful, the majority firmly believing that their ancient priestly writings contained the prophecy that this was the very time when the East should grow strong and that men starting from Judea should possess the world. So you've got this mysterious prophecy that Tacitus says points to Vespasian and Titus, father and son, but that it's possible these space wizards would have thought actually applied to someone else, not a typical emperor. Whatever the case, it must have been a gigantic deal for them because they did make this overland trip. So that's the first reason I think it makes sense that they might have made this trip. But the second reason I think it makes sense that they might have made this trip is that if they are from Persia in the East, well, the Jewish people have been there for 600 years at this point. Remember, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judea in five, what was it, 86 BC. So yeah, 600 years. That's two Americas. That is a lot of time for Jewish culture and folklore and religion and faith and prophecy to integrate with the consciousness of the larger Persian world. So they've been hearing this for that long. Maybe there are people who are just dedicated to looking. For those two reasons, I think they made the trip. I think they made the trip on good faith that they were going to find something. And according to the story, they were following a star. How does that work? Well, obviously, stars don't move, or at least they don't move from our perspective. I mean, the the movement of stars and those gigantic bodies spaced out that far over the universe appears to be microscopic from our position. We we wouldn't notice any kind of movement. A comet wouldn't move like this. You know, eventually it says that the star settled down in a place and it led them right to it. So even though I painted a whole bunch of different sized sports balls to look like the planets and nailed them to my ceiling when I was in eighth grade, I'm not really an astronomer and I don't understand everything about this. But there are smart people who suggest that this phrase, star in the east in Greek, would have had meaning unto itself. That this is a loaded phrase that described an astronomical phenomenon. And I don't know what the justification is or the external sources. I didn't look that up. I probably should have. But the suggestion is that a planet, which looks to us kind of like a star, because it is closer, we do see those move about. And we can be in a situation where a planet is there, but because of the light of the sun, we don't see it. And then as a planet enters into a phase where we do see it, it begins to manifest just moments before the light of the sun in the morning overtakes it. And so the suggestion is that this phrase, star in the east, is used in extra-biblical sources to describe that phenomenon of what we would call a planet coming back into view. Could be, could not be. Again, I've only nailed painted balls to my ceiling. Don't know exactly how this works. As such, though, the theory would go that the position of that planet might move along the horizon and that possibly such astronomers or space wizards, as we're calling them, might have figured that out and followed it and somehow gained direction from it. Look, I don't get the nuts and bolts of it. It's a really fun thing to theorize, kind of like theorizing about how a virgin birth would actually happen or that conception. But the point is this Herod believed there was something to it. The people at the time believed there was something to it. Wealthy, competent adults who would have made good money to just stay home were so convinced that there was something to it that they loaded up on a road trip that people like you and me have never experienced because they were sure this meant something. What do we do with that? Ha ha ha. Yeah, let's get into that tomorrow. Again, this week of the podcast is brought to you by Dwell. It is a perfect companion app for what we do. Go and try it out for free for seven days. You can search that on your iPhone, your Android phone, whatever. If you like it, and I really think you're gonna like it, you can sign up for a full year subscription for 20 bucks instead of 30 bucks, 33% off for anybody who is listening to TMBH and using our little code. The URL to do that is dwellapp.io slash TMBH. Or if that's hard to remember, it's linked down below, right on top of the show notes, and you can go and sign up for that for the year. The feedback on this has been really encouraging so far, and I appreciate you checking it out. So thanks to Dwell for sponsoring the program and helping to make it happen. Thanks to you for listening. More about the Magi and the star and what it all means next time around. I'm Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible hour. Let's do this again soon.