124 - Who Were the Wise Men of the Nativity?

Hey, just catching up on these episodes now. Just thought it would be interesting to add a few tidbits from a Jewish perspective. When you guys were talking about the Aaron's staff, an interesting point to note is that the text says that the staff of Aaron swallow the Egyptians' staves. Many commentaries specifically point this out to emphasize that once the Egyptians were able to replicate the basic miracle, the additional miracle of the staff consuming the others was seen as a mere add-on. Another interesting point is that the magicians also replicate the first two plagues (blood and frogs) successfully and attempt to replicate the 3rd (lice) but fail. Interestingly, at this point the magicians say it is G-d yet the Pharaoh didn't heed them. One more point about the magicians in the biblical story here, and admittedly I'm not sure what to make of it. Ot different points, there are different groups, wise men, sorcerers, and necromancer, and different groups are replicating different miracles or plagues. They also respond differently at different times and all in the end tell the Pharaoh that it is G-d. Last point which relates to the discussion after the staff you guys had about how these magicians have access to power. From the Jewish perspective, it isn't that there is another separate power that is being accessed, it is that things have levels of access to G-d's power that was assigned to them by G-d when they were created or formed, this power is accessible but we are supposed to forgo the simpler access of this power via transaction (these powers were accessible via following rules) and instead choose to have a direct relationship with G-d that we have the opportunity to have and by doing so bring ourselves beyond the "limitations of the stars" as was shown is possible to Abraham when he was brought "above the stars".

Adam

I posted this to Matt's video on youtube as well but thought it might have a higher chance of being noticed here. After listening to both this episode and Matt's video recently, I think both you and Destin would enjoy this video as it falls in a Venn diagram middle between humanities, astronomy, history, and bible. In this episode y'all dipped your feet in the water at looking at the stars and the sense that they could be mapped but didn't go into the realm where the video from the attached website goes, we can go back in time with astronomy software, place ourselves on the earth where we think the Magi may have been from, and try to find the signs that the Magi may have seen. The supposition in the video that seems to make sense is that the Magi may have been from a school in Babylon established by Daniel which would give credence to their understanding of the stars and their desire to seek out the Messiah. https://bethlehemstar.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exmbuX1NffU