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Speaker 1: What if I told you that there were parts of

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Speaker 1: the Christmas story that you've never heard, and that everything

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Speaker 1: you know about those three Wise Men is probably wrong.

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Speaker 1: Wait until you hear the historic reality all on this

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Speaker 1: very special Arroyo Grande. Come on, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to a royal Grande. Go subscribe to the show. Now

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Speaker 1: turn those notifications on. I want you to know what's coming,

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Speaker 1: and if you'd like to support the show, please visit

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Speaker 1: Raymond Arroyo dot com. The Christmas story is so familiar

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Speaker 1: that I think we take it for granted. Mary and Joseph,

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Speaker 1: the Manger, the Shepherds, the Star, the Wise Men. A

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Speaker 1: few years ago I wrote a book called The Wise

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Speaker 1: Men Who Found Christmas, and I came across a researcher

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Speaker 1: who revealed to me historic insights that truly blew my mind.

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Speaker 1: The magi, the three Wise Men, we have gotten entirely wrong.

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Speaker 1: Who are the three Kings? They were likely not kings

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Speaker 1: at all. Margaret Barker has spent decades researching the ancient

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Speaker 1: First Temple traditions that shaped early Christianity. She was the

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Speaker 1: former president of the Society for Old Testament Study at

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Speaker 1: Cambridge and in two thousand and eight she wrote an

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Speaker 1: amazing book, Christmas, The Original Story. It absolutely up ends

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Speaker 1: so much of what we take for granted about the Nativity.

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Speaker 1: She joins me. Now, Margaret Barker, I'm so glad you're here.

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Speaker 1: You've spent your entire career digging into Temple theology and

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Speaker 1: First Temple traditions. I want to start with the Magi.

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Speaker 1: They are among the most popular and well known characters,

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Speaker 1: if you will, of the Christmas season. We call them

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Speaker 1: three wise men. We sing about three kings from the Orient.

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Speaker 1: But none of that is true, is it?

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Speaker 2: Well, it might not be true. With everything we see

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Speaker 2: say about the Christmas story, we can't be certain. All

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Speaker 2: we can be certain of is the words we have

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Speaker 2: in the New Testament, and we can be pretty sure

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Speaker 2: that the way we read those words is not the

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Speaker 2: way they were intended to be read. So those are

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Speaker 2: the certainties.

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Speaker 1: What do you make of this idea that they were Persians?

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Speaker 1: We always heard that, oh, they're from Babylonian Babylonia, they're Persians,

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Speaker 1: or they're from the far East. Because we three men,

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Speaker 1: you know, wise men from the Orient. They took that

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Speaker 1: as being the far East. Explain that to us, is

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Speaker 1: that true.

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Speaker 2: Well, it might be, but on the other hand, it's

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Speaker 2: more likely not to be. A lot of the early

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Speaker 2: Christian writers said they came from the East, and as

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Speaker 2: late as the Middle Ages, the European Middle Ages. Marco Polo,

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Speaker 2: when he was on his travels, he saw the tombs

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Speaker 2: of the Majori on his travels in Central Asia. But

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Speaker 2: at the same time the tombs of the Magi were

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Speaker 2: being erected in Cologne Cathedral in Germany. So clearly there

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Speaker 2: were quite a lot of places where the Magi were buried,

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Speaker 2: and this means there were lots of stories. But if

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Speaker 2: you had the bodies of the Magii, you had a

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Speaker 2: major investment in the tourist industry. But they called it

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Speaker 2: pilgrimage in those days, and it was in your interest

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Speaker 2: to keep the maji.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about the thing that fascinated me most. And

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Speaker 1: I know when I was writing My Wise Men Who

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Speaker 1: Found Christmas Picture Book, I sort of used a lot

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Speaker 1: of this research and others. You mentioned early Christian writers.

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Speaker 1: Justin Martyr early popes, they mentioned the wise men coming

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Speaker 1: from Arabia. So it's east of Jerusalem, not the Farias.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think that has merit or do you.

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Speaker 2: Arabia in the time of Jesus was not the Arabia

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Speaker 2: we know now. It's just a word that means the desert,

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Speaker 2: and the Arabia in the time of Jesus would have

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Speaker 2: been the area that is now the Kingdom of Jordan,

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Speaker 2: and perhaps land to the south of that. And there

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Speaker 2: is a lot of evidence that the people who appear

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Speaker 2: in Matthew's Gospel as the Magi came from somewhere in

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Speaker 2: southern Jordan that sort of area. Lots lots of reasons

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Speaker 2: to think this, and.

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Speaker 1: The king that would be the Kingdom of Nabatia correct

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Speaker 1: at the time.

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Speaker 2: It would be the land of the Naboteans, and possibly

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Speaker 2: a bit further to the south as well. But it's

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Speaker 2: very difficult. We can only speculate. We can do the

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Speaker 2: best we can with a little evidence that we've got.

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Speaker 2: One of the most exciting things for me in the

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Speaker 2: development of my study of this over the last what

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Speaker 2: fifteen or twenty years, has been discovering a little known

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Speaker 2: text that survives in Syria. It is available online in

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Speaker 2: an English translation, so you don't have to learn Syriac

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Speaker 2: to be able to read it. And this says that

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Speaker 2: the wise men were in fact a group of twelve,

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Speaker 2: and these twelve wise men came from a land which

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Speaker 2: in this manuscript is described as Shia, which seems to

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Speaker 2: me to be the old biblical territory of say Ea

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Speaker 2: spelled s i R. Now, if that is the case,

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Speaker 2: that manuscript locates the Magi, the twelfth Magi in the

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Speaker 2: south of the Kingdom of Jordan, around the area that

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Speaker 2: is now called Petra. Furthermore, that Syriac text tells us

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Speaker 2: these magi were priestly characters, high priestly characters, descendants of

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Speaker 2: the royal high priests to all of the House of David.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: So they weren't just they weren't just wise men from

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Speaker 2: the east. If we think back into the language of

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Speaker 2: the first Christians, and I think the first Christians around

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Speaker 2: Jerusalem and in Galilee would almost certainly have spoken a

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Speaker 2: form of Hebrew, and in Hebrew the word from the

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Speaker 2: east is the same as the word from ancient times

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Speaker 2: mikdem Wow. So we have this wonderful Syriac text, quite

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Speaker 2: an early Syriac text, which says that there were twelve

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Speaker 2: people from ancient times who had been guarding all sorts

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Speaker 2: of old traditions and old books and were looking for

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Speaker 2: a star and when they saw it, they set off.

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Speaker 2: Now that's a wonderful story, and that raises all sorts

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Speaker 2: of questions because Matthew doesn't tell us there were three

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Speaker 2: of them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. We assume there are three because they're

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Speaker 1: three gifts mentioned. Right, that's right. Is uhhah. But there

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Speaker 1: may have been twelve. There was another text I read

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Speaker 1: where I think there was something like sixteen or sixty.

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Speaker 1: You know, there are a number of texts that they're

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Speaker 1: certainly more than three. But here's the question. I loved

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Speaker 1: that your research revealed this because it makes sense, Margaret,

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Speaker 1: you contend that these were Jewish priests of that first temple. Okay,

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Speaker 1: how did they get to Arabia? Walk me through what

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Speaker 1: happened here seven hundred years before Christ comes along?

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Speaker 2: I think there was, well, I know there was some

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Speaker 2: sort of cultural revolution in the temple in Jerusalem dated

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Speaker 2: to about six twenty three BCE in the time of

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Speaker 2: King Josiah, and a modernizing group a bit like Protestants

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Speaker 2: actually gained power in the temple and they wanted to

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Speaker 2: be rid of all the old equivalent of high church practices,

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Speaker 2: all the smells and bell stuff. They wanted a much

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Speaker 2: more modern, let's just keep the rules, refreshed religion. Shortly

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Speaker 2: after they came to power, the political powers of the day,

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Speaker 2: the Babylonians at this time moved in, conquered Jerusalem, deported

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Speaker 2: the leading characters to Babylon and so forth. And the

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Speaker 2: remnants of the Old Temple were lost as a result

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Speaker 2: of the Cultural Revolution and then the military disaster. And

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Speaker 2: at a lot of these the priestly elite who were

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Speaker 2: the victims of the Cultural Revolution had already fled, and

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Speaker 2: they had fled first of all east and then south.

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Speaker 2: And it looks as though these expulsions had begun in

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Speaker 2: the time of the prophet isaiahs. So we're looking about

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Speaker 2: seven fifty to seven hundred BC.

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Speaker 1: Wow. So just to summarize this, So what you're saying

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Speaker 1: is they're these first Temple priests, if you will, the

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Speaker 1: Royal High priesthood, the Order of Malkisa deck that those

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Speaker 1: who you know attend those who go to Mass, will

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Speaker 1: you know, Catholics certainly hear that term all the time.

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Speaker 1: The Order of Malchiza deck explain to us. So they're expelled.

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Speaker 1: This priestly kept class is expelled and they scattered. Do

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Speaker 1: they become advisors to the royalty. I mean they're very

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Speaker 1: educated men.

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Speaker 2: Obviously they some of them seem to have stayed in Jerusalem,

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Speaker 2: but life got very difficult for them, and as far

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Speaker 2: as I can see, they gradually withdrew themselves. The end,

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Speaker 2: they were all living in an exile that wasn't the

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Speaker 2: exile in Babylon. It was an exile in what is

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Speaker 2: now the Kingdom of Jordan, in the Nabertean area. And

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Speaker 2: from there they kept their first temple traditions, so Solomon's Temple.

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Speaker 2: They kept those traditions alive. Now, the leader of this

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Speaker 2: group was the Great Isaiah, And if you think about it,

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Speaker 2: the Christmas prophecies that we use in our church services,

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Speaker 2: the main ones are from Isaiah. The others in his

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Speaker 2: group were the prophets Micah, Habakuk and Joel. Now Joel

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Speaker 2: gives us the Wits and Pentecost prophecies. Micah gives us

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Speaker 2: one of the other great Christmas prophecies Bethley hem ephretar

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Speaker 2: from usual come forth for me, etc. And then not

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Speaker 2: used in the Western Church, but used in the Eastern

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Speaker 2: Orthodox Church. There is the prophecy at the beginning of

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Speaker 2: a backup chapter three about the Lord coming and coming

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Speaker 2: from just that part of the world.

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Speaker 1: MM. Sot me Margaret this When I first read your research,

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Speaker 1: it all made sense, because you know, there are mosaics

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Speaker 1: of you know, three Babylonian kings wearing little red hats

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Speaker 1: in some church, and that became kind of the visual,

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Speaker 1: if you will, That became part of the tradition. Then

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Speaker 1: they assign names to them, all those three names Balthasar, Caspar,

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Speaker 1: and what's the other one? I forget, Melchior. Those three

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Speaker 1: names simply mean king in different languages. Why do you

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Speaker 1: think they they assigned a kingship to them? And where

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Speaker 1: did this tradition of they were three kings come from?

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Speaker 1: If they were really royal priests of the first Temple.

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Speaker 2: I suspect it was a half Mariam. But tradition they

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Speaker 2: were certainly kings, and they were certainly royal. But in

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Speaker 2: Solomon's temple, the Melchizedek priesthood had belonged to the royal family.

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Speaker 2: They were the priests what we call the sacral kings,

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Speaker 2: that's what they were called. And Solomon presided at the

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Speaker 2: consecration of the temple. We read that story in the

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Speaker 2: first Book of Kings. So he was also a high priest,

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Speaker 2: and there's a story recorded that in the time of

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Speaker 2: King Ziah. You remember, Isaiah was called to be a prophet.

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Speaker 2: In the year that King Oziah died. Ziah had a

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Speaker 2: great fight, literally a great fight with the other priesthood

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Speaker 2: that was trying to gain power, and he was thrown

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Speaker 2: out at the temple, and the stories he became a leper.

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Speaker 2: But Zire, as far as I can see, was the

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Speaker 2: last Melchizedek priest who functioned as a Melchizedek in Solomon's temple,

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Speaker 2: And so there was a big change in the way

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Speaker 2: things were done in Jerusalem, and Melchizedek emerges again in

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Speaker 2: Christian tradition. Just Jesus.

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Speaker 1: One of the things I love here is it never

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Speaker 1: made sense to me that non believers from the far East,

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Speaker 1: non Jews or Babylonian Pagans, would suddenly be interested in

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Speaker 1: Jewish prophecies. None of that made sense to me. But

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Speaker 1: in reading your research, it all falls into place. If

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Speaker 1: you had these members of the royal priesthood, this expelled class,

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Speaker 1: the descendants of that royal caste thrown out seven hundred

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Speaker 1: years before, who had been studying these prophecies, and they

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Speaker 1: see the star rise, it makes sense that they would

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Speaker 1: go seek out this Messiah. It doesn't make sense for

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Speaker 1: the others.

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Speaker 2: It makes absolutely perfect sense. And if you read this story,

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Speaker 2: it emphasizes that they handed down these traditions farther to

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Speaker 2: some through the generations. That idea of handing them down

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Speaker 2: through the generations appears in traditional Nativity art, even in

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Speaker 2: the Western Church, because when you see a picture of

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Speaker 2: the three maje Eye, there's always one old man, one

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Speaker 2: middle aged man, and one young man, and that symbolizes

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Speaker 2: handing it down through the generations. And even the even

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Speaker 2: a supermarket Christmas card that has the Nativity seen on

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Speaker 2: it will have an old man, a middle aged man,

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Speaker 2: and a young man. That's just a little trace of

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Speaker 2: this tradition.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I now believe they were likely on a diplomatic

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Speaker 1: mission from the king of Namatia. Possibly, do you share

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Speaker 1: that idea that that they may have been part of

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Speaker 1: a formal diplomatic mission of a kingdom? Otherwise, how could

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Speaker 1: they pass into this territory into Judea.

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Speaker 2: Well, they could have been people of very great influence,

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Speaker 2: so they could have had people still in Jerusalem who

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Speaker 2: supported them. You remember the story that's told in Luke's

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Speaker 2: Gossible about Anna, the old woman who was hanging around

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Speaker 2: the temple. She was waiting for the liberation of the people.

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Speaker 2: The freedom of the people. Now, this was not, as

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Speaker 2: far as I can see it, freedom from the Romans,

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Speaker 2: although that was the practical manifestation of it. This was

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Speaker 2: freedom from the current regime in the Temple, which had

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Speaker 2: virtually obliterated the traditions of Solomon's Temple, and they were

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Speaker 2: wanting to go back to the old ways. That was

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Speaker 2: very important. So there were people in Jerusalem who were

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Speaker 2: ready to and so Anna, when she sees the child

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Speaker 2: coming to the temple and realizes what has happened, she

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Speaker 2: goes off and does what old ladies do very well.

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Speaker 2: She tells everybody, everybody she knows he's come. That's a

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Speaker 2: lovely story.

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Speaker 1: Ah Well, here's the thing that that I am fascinated by,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to bring this to people because we

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Speaker 1: often overlook the long history of waiting that the Jewish

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Speaker 1: people had waiting for that Messiah, particularly these members of

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Speaker 1: that first Temple royal priesthood. If anybody's waiting. They're really waiting,

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Speaker 1: and they're attentive to these prophecies. And that we read

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Speaker 1: and hear about the prophecies, we sort of put them

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Speaker 1: out of mind, but they are really central to what's

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Speaker 1: happening here. Because as your research brings out, Margaret, I

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Speaker 1: have to tell you, it totally reoriented the way I

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Speaker 1: look at the Wise Men and the entire Nativity itself.

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Speaker 1: And as I said, it's really what provoked me to

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Speaker 1: write this children's book because I wanted to at least

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Speaker 1: plant the seeds of this idea that the wise men

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Speaker 1: and the gifts they brought, this was not a housewarming gift.

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Speaker 1: There was an intention here. The wise men brought gold

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Speaker 1: and frankensens and merder. That's what the scriptures tell on

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Speaker 1: lockfores what each of these gifts revealed about their intentions

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Speaker 1: and who these people might be the wise men. Let's

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Speaker 1: start with the gold. How is that tied to the

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Speaker 1: First Temple?

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Speaker 2: Well, how's that tied to the first Temple? In the temple,

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Speaker 2: if you look at the descriptions of it, the interior

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Speaker 2: of the temple, the Holy of Holies, that's the central well,

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Speaker 2: the most holy part, the most the inner part of

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Speaker 2: the Temple was completely lined with gold, so it was

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Speaker 2: a golden space. It was hidden behind the Great Curtain,

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Speaker 2: but it was a golden space. All the vessels used

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Speaker 2: in the Golden Space were made of gold. And so

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Speaker 2: the essence of the teaching of the First Temple was

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Speaker 2: represented by gold. And since the teaching of the First

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Speaker 2: Temple was known as wisdom, wisdom was represented by gold.

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Speaker 2: And if you look, if you look at the robes

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Speaker 2: of the High Priest, when the Book of Exodus describes

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Speaker 2: the ephod that the High Priest wears, he wears that

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Speaker 2: ephod when he's out in the world, when he's outside

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Speaker 2: the petew heaven that's represented by the temple, and he

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Speaker 2: wears an ephod woven from the four colors of the

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Speaker 2: temple veil, and they represent matter and the creation, but

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Speaker 2: they are interwoven with gold. And this means that the

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Speaker 2: high priest role was to weave the wisdom of heaven

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Speaker 2: through the fabric of creation. And that is a lovely

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Speaker 2: sermon in a piece of cloth. The High Priest wore it.

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Speaker 1: And you cite Philo of Alexandria in your book. I

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Speaker 1: remember about talking about the gold in the priestly vestments.

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Speaker 1: So these, let's assume these are members of that first

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Speaker 1: temple royal priestood. Seven hundred years later, finally seeing the

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Speaker 1: rise of the Messiah, they go to seek him out.

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Speaker 1: They find him in Bethlehem. Why are they giving him

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Speaker 1: that gold?

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Speaker 2: They are bringing it back as a sign that the

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Speaker 2: essence of the original temple, Solomon's temple is going to

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Speaker 2: be restored by this baby.

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Speaker 1: Wow. What about the frankincense, Margaret?

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Speaker 2: Now well, the frankincense was the dominant element of the incense,

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Speaker 2: and the temple incense was only offered by the high priest.

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Speaker 2: And when you were made a high priest, the term

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Speaker 2: in Hebrew was they filled his hands. In other words,

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Speaker 2: when the literal Hebrew, when you read in the English,

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Speaker 2: he was consecrated and made a high priest. It literally

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Speaker 2: so says they filled his hand and made him a

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Speaker 2: high priest. So this was it was the burning of

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Speaker 2: the incense that was the prerogative of the high priest.

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Speaker 2: This is what happened to poor Uziah. He went in

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Speaker 2: the last Melchizedek priest. He thought he had the right

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Speaker 2: to burn incense, and these upstart new priests said no,

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Speaker 2: you're not. You know, it's our turn now, and they

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Speaker 2: threw him out. So the incense was the sign of

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Speaker 2: the return of the office or the role of the

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Speaker 2: royal high priest. That was very very important.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so, and and then let's talk about the

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Speaker 1: murrhor oil. So we went through the gold, the frankencense.

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Speaker 1: Now there's mr Now, murr oil, like frankencense, is from

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Speaker 1: the sap of a tree, and those trees only grew

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Speaker 1: in that Nabateean region to modern day Jordan or Petra.

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Speaker 1: But this one always seemed odd to me. Murror oil

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Speaker 1: was used for embalming, we're told, but you say it

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Speaker 1: had another purpose.

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Speaker 2: In the first temple, murrh oil was the dominant ingredient,

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Speaker 2: the main ingredient of the holy annoyed oil that's described

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Speaker 2: also in the Book of Exodus, and they give you

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Speaker 2: a recipe for it, and they tell you what it's

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Speaker 2: made of, and the dominant ingredient the major agreement is

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Speaker 2: muh oil. Now, when this myuh oil had been made,

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Speaker 2: it was kept, it was very sacred, and it was

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Speaker 2: used to impart holiness. So there are three degrees of

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Speaker 2: holiness in the temple. There's ordinary holiness, which you can

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Speaker 2: catch and you can't pass on. And then there is

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Speaker 2: holy holiness, which is infectious holiness, and you can pass on.

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Speaker 2: And then there is the highest level, which is holy

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Speaker 2: holy holiness, and that can only be imparted by the

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Speaker 2: sacred oil. So if the sacred oil anointed you, you

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Speaker 2: became an infectiously holy person or an infectiously holy thing,

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Speaker 2: and it cut you. It or he or she could

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Speaker 2: imp heart holiness of all these degrees, and the temple

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Speaker 2: oil was the most sacred part, and the bringing it

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Speaker 2: back was a sign.

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Speaker 1: That the.

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Speaker 2: Essence or the means of the old Temple holiness had

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Speaker 2: been restored. And that is a very very important element

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Speaker 2: of the Magei's gifts.

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Speaker 1: So that the mirror oil was kept in the Holy

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Speaker 1: of Holies, and it was used to anoint the members

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Speaker 1: of this royal high priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.

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Speaker 2: Guess yes, And tradition is that it disappeared after the

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Speaker 2: First Temple. There was no holy oil in the Second Temple,

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Speaker 2: and so the priests of the Second Temple were not

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Speaker 2: anointed high priests, the priests of many garments. They were

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Speaker 2: given the extra garments of high priesthood. But they weren't anointed.

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Speaker 2: And so when the Christians come back and say we

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Speaker 2: have the annoy pointed high priest, this was not only

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Speaker 2: a revolutionary statement. It was also a statement that this

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Speaker 2: was the Melchizedek priesthood coming back. The oil had returned.

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Speaker 1: That's all very important. So, Margaret, these wise men were

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Speaker 1: not just bringing this child some goodies. They were actually

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Speaker 1: anointing him with this mirror oil to restore the priesthood

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Speaker 1: and acknowledge this is the final high priest of the

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Speaker 1: Old Temple.

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Speaker 2: Well, we don't know that they anointed him. We just

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Speaker 2: told that they brought the oil. But what is important

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Speaker 2: is that the Christians believed that Jesus was the restorer.

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Speaker 2: Now've got to take you now to John's Gospel. John's Gospel,

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Speaker 2: John's account of the Crucifixion. We're going a long way

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Speaker 2: from the Nativity story now, but it's necessary. If you

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Speaker 2: read John's account of the crucifixion. He says that Pilot

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Speaker 2: put on the notice over Jesus' cross. He said, Jesus,

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Speaker 2: apparently Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews. Now, the

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Speaker 2: other gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke just say king of

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Speaker 2: the Jews. But John gives us this extra information, Jesus

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Speaker 2: of Nazareth. Now, if you read his Greek carefully, he

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Speaker 2: doesn't say Jesus of Nazareth. He uses the word Nazios

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Speaker 2: with an omeger in the middle, and Nasarios imitates the

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Speaker 2: Hebrew word nsah, which means the restorer or the preserver.

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Speaker 2: And so Pilot writes on the cross using the words

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Speaker 2: to Saint John, Jesus the restorer or the guardian or

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Speaker 2: the preserver, the king of the Jews. Jesus dies as

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Speaker 2: the restoring king. This is the logical end of the

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Speaker 2: story of the wise Men. The oil has been brought

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Speaker 2: and then the Melchizedek king dies and rises again.

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Speaker 1: Believable now, because what we always think of these we

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Speaker 1: always think of these wise men as sort of side characters.

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Speaker 1: In fact, they're crucially important not only to underscoring who

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Speaker 1: Jesus is, but why he came and the significance of

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Speaker 1: him in salvation history.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yes, absolutely, they are the key. And Matthew tells

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Speaker 2: us this, and he makes it quite clear, but he

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Speaker 2: uses symbolism, and he talks about the fulfillment of prophecy.

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Speaker 2: Matthew chapter one before the mage I arrive, and we

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Speaker 2: have the story of Joseph and him discovering that Mary

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Speaker 2: was pregnant, and so forth, and he is told that

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Speaker 2: she is going to fulfill the prophecy of the Virgin.

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Speaker 2: She'll conceive and bear a child Isaiah seventh. Now what

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Speaker 2: is interesting there, and this might surprise you, is that

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Speaker 2: if you look in the Dead Sea Scrolls copy of Isaiah,

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Speaker 2: the Great Isaiah Scroll, it doesn't say, ask a sign

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Speaker 2: from the Lord your God, behold the Virgin shall conceive

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Speaker 2: from bear a child. It says, ask a sign from

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Speaker 2: the Mother of the Lord your God, behold, the virgin

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Speaker 2: Calledness shall conceive and bear a child. And it's quite

400
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Speaker 2: clear in the scroll. It's not in the present Hebrew text.

401
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Speaker 2: It's just one letter difference. One letter. The Isaiah scroll

402
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Speaker 2: has an Aleph, and the current Hebrew text, the Massoretic text,

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Speaker 2: we call it that as Ryan. But if you read

404
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Speaker 2: that word as it is written, not in the transcriptions.

405
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Speaker 2: You've got to look at the photographs or even the

406
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Speaker 2: scroll itself, and it's quite clear. It says, ask a

407
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 2: sign from the Mother of the Lord your God, behold

408
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Speaker 2: the Virgin shall conceive and bear a child.

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Speaker 1: And what do you think that means, Margaret. It means that.

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Speaker 2: The mother of the Lord was part of the First

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Speaker 2: Temple expectation. They believed that the Lord had a heavenly mother,

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Speaker 2: and that is very important. And she's not called a virgin.

413
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Speaker 2: Look at the English translations handles Messiah. They're all wrong.

414
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Speaker 2: It doesn't say a virgin shall conceive. It says the

415
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Speaker 2: virgin shall conceive.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: So this is a very special female figure, the mother

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Speaker 2: of the Lord.

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Speaker 1: You've written about the astronomical significance of that star, the

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Speaker 1: star that guided the wise men. We've seen the planetarium

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Speaker 1: show suggesting that Jupiter and Saturn may have been an alignment,

422
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Speaker 1: or there was a comet in this guy. Nobody really

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Speaker 1: knows what that is, what that star phenomena was. But

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Speaker 1: what does your research indicate, Margaret, And how is that

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Speaker 1: tied to these First Temple traditions.

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Speaker 2: Well, my research here has produced no conclusions. I keep

427
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Speaker 2: reading all the new theories and thinking, well, that's another one,

428
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Speaker 2: isn't it interesting? I wonder which one is true. We've

429
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Speaker 2: probably mild We're probably miles away from the truth on

430
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Speaker 2: that one, because we've got too many experts and they're

431
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Speaker 2: always a problem, but the star was an important part

432
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 2: of the Messianic tradition. Now many years ago, I was

433
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 2: looking particularly at the when I was writing a little

434
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 2: commentary on the Book of Isaiah. I was looking at

435
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 2: this phenomenon of the virgins you'll conceive and bear a son.

436
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 2: And I wondered if this was anything to do with

437
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 2: or the timing was anything to do with a particular

438
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 2: sign of astronomical sign. And I was working in the

439
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 2: university library and Cambridge, and through a friend who introduced me,

440
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 2: I had an amazing mind blowing session with a paleo

441
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 2: astronomer in the university. And I met him in the

442
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 2: university team which is what they call the cafe, and

443
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 2: he had his laptop there and he was tapping away

444
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 2: and he produced for me the night sky as it

445
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 2: would have been in Jerusalem, looking east, and I said,

446
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 2: I'm looking for a sign that could be the sign

447
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 2: of the woman clothed with the sun, so something in

448
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 2: the sign of the sun, the constellation Virgo, and something else.

449
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 2: And he found it. He found exactly what I needed.

450
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 2: He found the sign of the Messiah, which is the

451
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 2: planet Venus in the morning star in Hebrew astronomy, and

452
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 2: it was passing through the sign of the Sun, and

453
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 2: it was visible looking east from Jerusalem, and I said,

454
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 2: could you give me a date? And he kind of

455
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: potted around and said autumn of seventy three one BC.

456
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 2: And I said, thank you very much. Indeed, because that

457
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 2: was exactly what I was hoping he would say, I

458
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 2: hadn't given him this date at all, and I suspect

459
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 2: there was a particular astronomical configuration that the mage I

460
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 2: were looking for. Now I'm not an astronomer. I couldn't

461
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 2: possibly check that out. I was immensely grateful because this

462
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 2: was useful information fitted my theory. What we know from

463
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 2: the magi is that they were expecting to see a

464
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 2: mighty star, and then the legend that developed around it

465
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 2: was that within that star they would see a small child.

466
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: And we know that.

467
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 2: A summary of that strange Syriac text was available in

468
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 2: Latin in a commentary on Matthew's Gospel that was known

469
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 2: in Europe in the Middle Ages, and it was just

470
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 2: a summary of this story of the magi and star

471
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 2: with the little person side it. And this inspired some

472
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 2: Dutch artists, and there are actually artists who have depicted,

473
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 2: meaning the magi, the magi looking up and seeing this

474
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 2: amazing star with a little man in the middle of it,

475
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 2: and this was the sign of the Messiah. So there

476
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 2: are all these things that come together from across so

477
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 2: many cultures and signs, and you think he is a

478
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 2: practiced margaret.

479
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: Just from my own clarity. The prophecy is in Isaiah,

480
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: is it the separable rise from Jerusalem? Is that the

481
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: you know that?

482
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 2: No, that's the prophecy in Bilab, the prophecy of the

483
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 2: vision of Baylam, that's in numbers twenty three and numbers

484
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 2: twenty four. A startiall rise out of Jacob and so forth.

485
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 2: Now that was recognized very early on as a Messianic prophecy.

486
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 2: And in some early Christian frescoes there is a male figure,

487
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 2: possibly a prophet, we don't know, and Mary and the

488
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 2: child and the male figure is pointing towards the star.

489
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 2: And we don't know who this male figure is, but

490
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 2: he could be Blam because he has this vision of

491
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 2: a Messiah and he's going to be the star who rises,

492
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 2: but we just don't know. The star is deeply rooted

493
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 2: in the Christian nativity tradition. If you just go saying

494
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 2: is it a conjunction of planets or is it a

495
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 2: common or all the rest of it? That's fine. That's

496
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 2: rather like asking what sort of salt Lot's wife turned

497
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 2: into when she turned into a pillar. We don't actually

498
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 2: need to know that. We need to know why the

499
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 2: star was significant.

500
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, tell me about that journey. I mean, let's

501
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: assume they did. From the early Christian from the first

502
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: and second century, you have Christian writers saying that the

503
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: wise men came from Arabia. Let's assume it is Nabata,

504
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: the present day Petra. What is that journey like from

505
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: present day Petra to Bethelhem. What kind of danger were

506
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: these wise men facing?

507
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I've only done it in a

508
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 2: tourist bus, to be honest. It's pretty dry, and even

509
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 2: now it's pretty bumpy. It's pretty daunting territory. I wouldn't

510
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 2: like to have done it. Although if these maje I

511
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 2: really were twelve and they would have come with an

512
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 2: entourage and various things. If they were the remnants of royalty,

513
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 2: I imagine they wouldn't have been loan travelers. But it's

514
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 2: pretty arid desert. It's not the sort of, well, we

515
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 2: go to see it because it's biblical scenery, but it's

516
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 2: not something we would choose to do.

517
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: I think, well, Margaret, your work on this First Temple

518
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: theology has really been quite revolutionary for people who haven't

519
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: read your books. Explain what we've been talking about here

520
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 1: all along. What is First Temple theology and why does

521
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: it matter to understanding Christianity.

522
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 2: It matters to understanding Christianity because Christianity is rooted in

523
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 2: the theology of the First Temple, Solomon's Temple, not in

524
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 2: the theology of the Second Temple. If you assume there

525
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 2: is a direct link with or move from Second Temple

526
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 2: theology into Christianity, you have to write very long books

527
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 2: of very complicated arguments and footnotes, and those are always suspect.

528
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 2: If you assume that Jesus was the preserver and the

529
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 2: restorer of the ways of Solomon's Temple, and that Christianity

530
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,720
Speaker 2: is rooted in the First Temple, which which had royal

531
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 2: high priests all those things, and also was the source,

532
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 2: of course, of all the prophecies that the Christians picked up.

533
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 2: If you assume that is, he's a much easier case

534
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 2: to argue. And then For example, if you look in

535
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 2: Saint John's Gospel, quite fascinating what John is doing when

536
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 2: he has Jesus in debate with the Jews, the group

537
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 2: he calls the Jews. And this doesn't render Jesus anti Semitic,

538
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 2: as some people are our saying. What he's doing is

539
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 2: comparing the Jews of his time, and they only had

540
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 2: that name according to Josephus after the exile. Before that

541
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:51,959
Speaker 2: they're known as the Hebrews, and he is What John

542
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:57,280
Speaker 2: is doing is comparing the teaching Jesus and his teaching

543
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:01,320
Speaker 2: from the First Temple with the current teaching of the Jews,

544
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:03,880
Speaker 2: and he shows how difference it is.

545
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, Margaret, your work, and I know your exploration of

546
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: the Nativity and the Christmas story. It doesn't just rely

547
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: on the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke. You have

548
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: studied the so called Infancy Gospel of James, which is

549
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:21,800
Speaker 1: a you know, outside the canon of the gospel accounts,

550
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:24,760
Speaker 1: but it's a tradition from the Coptic Church, even material

551
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 1: from the Koran. You've consulted. Why and what do these

552
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: extra biblical sources tell us that Matthew and Luke don't

553
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 1: or perhaps they're implied, but don't fully embrace.

554
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,280
Speaker 2: Well, if you look at the story in the Infancy

555
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 2: Gospel of James, that tells us a lot about the

556
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:50,280
Speaker 2: childhood of Mary. And if you decode that, it shows

557
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:53,799
Speaker 2: us that Mary as the little three year old girl

558
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 2: who is given to the temple as a gift. She

559
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:03,920
Speaker 2: is symbolic of wisdom and the female figure returning to

560
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,839
Speaker 2: the temple. And she stays in the temple. And then

561
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 2: when she is twelve and begins to menstruate, she becomes unclean,

562
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 2: and so she has to leave the temple, and she

563
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:19,800
Speaker 2: is entrusted to Joseph, who ultimately will marry her, but

564
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 2: not until she has given birth to Jesus. So all

565
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:29,479
Speaker 2: this story is highly symbolic. There are lots of things

566
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 2: in it which are symbolic that I tell.

567
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: Us about the veil. What she's doing there, she's a

568
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 1: veil weaver. Tell us what that means. That tells us, Yes,

569
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: when Mary was.

570
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 2: In the temple, according to the Infancy Gospel of James,

571
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 2: she was one of the young girls in the temple

572
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 2: who was actually weaving a new veil for the temple. Now,

573
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 2: it's perfectly possible that a new veil was being woven

574
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:56,720
Speaker 2: at that time because Herod was restoring and glorifying the temple.

575
00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 2: It was one of his vanity projects, really, and so

576
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 2: they probably were weaving a new veil. And when Mary

577
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 2: had left the temple, she continued to work as a

578
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 2: temple weaver. And the story is that when she first

579
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 2: or the second time, she was aware of the presence

580
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 2: of Gabriel. And Luke's gospel doesn't say that Mary saw Gabriel.

581
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 2: Mary heard Gabriel. She was actually working. According to the

582
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 2: Infancy Gospel of James, she was actually working. She was

583
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 2: spinning the wall for the temple veil. And this is

584
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 2: why when you see an icon of the Annunciation and

585
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,760
Speaker 2: Gabriel is rushing in from the left with this message,

586
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 2: Mary is sat on the right and she is spinning

587
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 2: red wall. The message there is that while Mary was

588
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 2: weaving literally the new veil of the temple, she was

589
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 2: just stating within herself, giving flesh to the one who

590
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 2: is going to emerge through that veil and become incarnate

591
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 2: among us. And the veil of the temple represented matter.

592
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 2: It represented earth, air, fire, and water, and the four

593
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 2: colors represented that. Woven together, they were the matter that

594
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:26,800
Speaker 2: concealed the glory of God from the eyes of humans.

595
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 2: And so when High Priest comes through the veil, he

596
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 2: takes on an ephod as I said earlier, woven from

597
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 2: those four colors, woven through with gold. Mary is depicted

598
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 2: as weaving the new veil of the temple. She is

599
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 2: giving flesh to the one who is going to come.

600
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 1: John. So she's literally the Holy of Holies with the veil,

601
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:53,400
Speaker 1: you know, creating the veil. I mean, that's really what

602
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: she is at that moment.

603
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful piece of symbolism. And John is quite

604
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 2: clear in the product of the Gospel. He said, the

605
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 2: Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld

606
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 2: the glory. And Charles Wesley's wonderful Christmas Carol, which I'm

607
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:13,240
Speaker 2: sure you sing as well, mailed in flesh the Godhead

608
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 2: see Hail incrlauty. See Charles Wesley knew far more temple

609
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 2: theology than most Christian ministers do today. That's a great pity.

610
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's a great line too. I love that.

611
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 1: I love that line. In the middle of the song.

612
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,239
Speaker 1: I have to ask you about something that's caused a

613
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: bit of stir the Jordanian lead codices. You chair the

614
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: Center for the Study of these Jordanian lead books. They're

615
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:42,400
Speaker 1: small lead books.

616
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:46,359
Speaker 2: Yes, the ones I study in the pages are little

617
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 2: tablets that are the size of a bank card, so

618
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 2: they're seriously small, and I have to work with huge magnification. Yes,

619
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 2: the first time I was aware of them, I was aware,

620
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 2: and this was what two thousands eleven, quite a while ago, and.

621
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: They were allegedly found in a cave in Jordan, right,

622
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:05,720
Speaker 1: but there's been a lot of controversy about whether.

623
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 2: They're are the controversy. Others have been found elsewhere, which

624
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:14,760
Speaker 2: fortunately are in a better state of preservation. And the ones,

625
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 2: the ones that I have been working on for the

626
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 2: last were ten years. I would think, yes, Sluboleu ten

627
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 2: years are really quite well preserved. And I have been

628
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 2: using just three pages from one of these little books

629
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 2: that was found outside Jordan, and they have been dismissed

630
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 2: because they are not obviously readable. They have been dismissed

631
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 2: as you know, superstitious magic charms and all kinds of stuff, forgeries,

632
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. But in fact they are perfectly

633
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:53,760
Speaker 2: readable once you persevere and realize that these were written

634
00:41:54,160 --> 00:42:00,400
Speaker 2: in a sophisticated code, and everything on them is a

635
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:04,800
Speaker 2: series of parallels. One side of the text has to

636
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,320
Speaker 2: match the other side of the text, like the writing

637
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,759
Speaker 2: in the line in Bencira, the Jewish philosopher who says,

638
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 2: you know, God created everything in pairs. And when you

639
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 2: start decoding these things, this is what is so fascinating.

640
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 2: You can find in them the roots, not only the

641
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 2: roots of the Nativity story, but also the outlines in

642
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 2: patterns of what became the traditional Nativity icon, which is

643
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 2: a very strange kind of cartoon depiction really, And then

644
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 2: you realize why all these funny little pictures around the

645
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 2: edge of Mary are put in the order that they are.

646
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 2: So these led books are showing that the Nativity story

647
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 2: has its roots way way back. And I have only recently,

648
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 2: about five or six months ago, managed to decode from

649
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,959
Speaker 2: one of the pages the story that we now read

650
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:10,240
Speaker 2: as the Nativity in the Qur'an. Huh, So that story

651
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 2: is ancient.

652
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:15,240
Speaker 1: Also are these? I thought you told me once before

653
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: that the Isaiah's prophecies were in some of these.

654
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 2: They are, Yes, they are. And I strongly suspect that

655
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 2: the people who created and certainly the people who preserved.

656
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,400
Speaker 2: These things were that school of Isaiah living in exile,

657
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 2: the exile profits because find when I'm finding some of

658
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 2: the words I'm finding in them are very rare Hebrew words,

659
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 2: and Hebrew dictionaries will say, well, this word is only

660
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 2: found once in Isaiah, we only find once in Micah,

661
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:55,399
Speaker 2: or something like that. The vocabulary points to this particular

662
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 2: points clearly to this particular group of profits.

663
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: And so what you're really saying, Margaret, is that these

664
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 1: led codices found in caves in Jordan could well be

665
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: the prayer books, the meditation books of the prophecies of

666
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 1: a coming Messiah that the wise men use.

667
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 2: They could be or and I think this is more likely,

668
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 2: they could be accurate copies of them, because these books

669
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 2: are made, they were cast in molds, and the letters

670
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:31,360
Speaker 2: on the surface of these books are above the surface,

671
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 2: So it would be very easy to make lots of

672
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 2: copies of the same book. And this is which means

673
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,240
Speaker 2: you could have lots and lots around and sewed.

674
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: It's incredible. The Israeli Antiquities Authority, the Jordanian government, many

675
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: scholars insist that these are forgeries. You would respond, how.

676
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 2: They're not quite simply and I'd be prepared to argue

677
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 2: that with anybody. Some of the people who've said therefore

678
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 2: have said that they are in sized lead tablets, that

679
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 2: the letters are cut into them. Well, that shows they

680
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,359
Speaker 2: never looked at one, because they're not cut into them.

681
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 2: They are above the surface. The letters are above the surface,

682
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 2: so you can't alter them. If you alter these lead books,

683
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 2: you have to melt them down and start again. So

684
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:23,680
Speaker 2: whatever we've got is the original, and we have lots

685
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 2: of people have done eminent metallogists have done studies on them.

686
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 2: And I don't understand metallogy. I just listen with amazement

687
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 2: to what these wise people can tell me. But they

688
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 2: are convinced they are very old, that the copies the

689
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 2: things I am working on are very old. I know

690
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 2: they exist because I, until I realized how valuable they were,

691
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 2: I walked around London with them in my handbag of

692
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 2: all things.

693
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: Wow, I don't do that, now, that's good, I won't.

694
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 1: I've got to go back to the Christmas Story for

695
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: a moment, Margaret, before we run out of time. You

696
00:45:56,760 --> 00:46:00,479
Speaker 1: wrote something in your book that I found striking. You wrote,

697
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 1: the Christmas Story does not describe the birth of the

698
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 1: Son of God. It describes the incarnation of the Son

699
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: of God who was born in eternity.

700
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 2: What does that mean, Margaret, Well, that means exactly what

701
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 2: the Orthodox Church make quite clear when they talk about

702
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 2: the Nativity. They talk about our Christmas, the Bethlehem story

703
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:26,360
Speaker 2: as the Nativity of the Son of God according to

704
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 2: the flesh. Because if you read the evidence of the

705
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 2: oldest Hebrew versions of for example, the Book of Deuteronomy,

706
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 2: such as is found amongst the Kumanteks, so the pre

707
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 2: Christian texts, they tell you quite clearly that there were

708
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 2: heavenly beings known as the sons of God. In the

709
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,439
Speaker 2: oldest Hebrew tradition, these were the sons of God most

710
00:46:54,560 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 2: High el eleone. And the firstborn of these, son of God,

711
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 2: was named the Lord, and he became the guardian Angel,

712
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 2: the special protector of the people of Israel. And so

713
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 2: the oldest stratum of the Old Testament has as its trinity,

714
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 2: if you like, the Father, the Mother of the Lord,

715
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 2: and their son. So we have Father, Mother, and son.

716
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 2: And this comes through into Christianity as Father, Holy Spirit,

717
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 2: and Son. And some of the Old I mean the

718
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:41,760
Speaker 2: Gospel of the heb of the Gospel written in Hebrew

719
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 2: that Jerome knew and consulted in four hundred AD. He

720
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 2: knew that Jesus called the Holy Spirit his heavenly mother.

721
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 1: So when Gabriel tells Mary that her son will be

722
00:47:57,160 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 1: called Son of the Most High, exactly what, Gabriel, and

723
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: you'll sit on the throne of David. That's really invoking

724
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: this language that you're talking about.

725
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:09,239
Speaker 2: Exactly right. Gabriel got it right. And if we don't

726
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 2: give them the credit for this, the power of the

727
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit will overshadow you. And so the incarnation was

728
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 2: not a rather crude version of perhaps a Greek seduction

729
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 2: legend where Zeus comes down and you know, seduces a

730
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 2: milkmaid and all this kind of thing and produces a demigod.

731
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 2: It was the operation of the Holy Spirit making a

732
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:38,800
Speaker 2: new creation. And that's what you get right at the

733
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:43,799
Speaker 2: beginning of Genesis. You get the Holy Spirit Genesis one,

734
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:47,760
Speaker 2: verse two. You get the Holy Spirit hovering over creation,

735
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 2: and she's a female figure there. It's it's a feminine

736
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 2: partisiple maracfa. She hovers and creation comes. And we have

737
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 2: in the story of the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit overshadowing

738
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 2: and the creation comes and as an early Christian gospel,

739
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 2: the Gospel of Philip, which has only survived in a

740
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:13,640
Speaker 2: Coptic translation. Philip was clearly dealing with this misconception, and

741
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 2: he says, when did a woman ever conceive from a woman?

742
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 2: Which is a very pointed remark. We know exactly what

743
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 2: he's saying, that the incarnation has to be understood as

744
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:33,160
Speaker 2: a new creation, not as you know, God as the

745
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 2: father and Mary as the mother, which is just a travesty.

746
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:43,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've written about how early Christian liturgy incorporated first

747
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:47,359
Speaker 1: Temple liturgy, the Eucharist, baptism, even the use of oil

748
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: and water. These aren't random innovations. They're restorations of those

749
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 1: ancient practices.

750
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 2: Oh, they are definitely restorations of the ancient practices. Otherwise,

751
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:04,439
Speaker 2: we have to credit the early Christians with incredible creativity

752
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:07,040
Speaker 2: in the first forty years when a lot of them

753
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 2: were hiding for fear of their lives, and yet this

754
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 2: sophisticated theology emerges very very early on, virtually you know,

755
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:22,280
Speaker 2: intact fully born. Unfortunately, due to the early years of persecution,

756
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 2: a lot of early Christian writings are lost, and we

757
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 2: have none of the early Hebrew writings in our extent.

758
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 2: I have a feeling, it's an increasingly strong and certain feeling,

759
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 2: that the little lad books that I am dealing with

760
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 2: are the reality behind John's vision of the Angel coming

761
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 2: from heaven. Remember Revelation chapter ten, and this mighty angel

762
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 2: surrounded by rainbow, all rest of it. And he brings

763
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 2: a little book which is opened, and he gives it

764
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:57,360
Speaker 2: to John, and he says to John, eat it, in

765
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 2: other words, absorb what it says, but don't talk about

766
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 2: you know, you mustn't speak it. And when you have

767
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 2: the seven thunders sounding in that seventh thunder's just the

768
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 2: seven voices, if you think about it. In Hebrew, what

769
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 2: John is being told is the vowels that you need

770
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:19,359
Speaker 2: to be able to read these Hebrew consonants, because all

771
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,239
Speaker 2: those Hebrew tablets that I'm dealing with don't have the

772
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 2: consonants with them, so you can read the don't have

773
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 2: the vowels with them. Obviously, you can read the consonants

774
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:30,760
Speaker 2: in all sorts of ways. And John is being told

775
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 2: how to read with the seven voices, the seven vowels,

776
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:38,880
Speaker 2: how to read this little book with all these strange

777
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:42,880
Speaker 2: letters in it. And then he's told absorb it, eat it,

778
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 2: and then office SI.

779
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:47,400
Speaker 1: Before I leave the Christmas story, because all of this

780
00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:50,200
Speaker 1: is so fascinating, tell me where do you think the

781
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: wise men left too? They said they returned home by

782
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:59,440
Speaker 1: different ways, but it's not reasonable to think they went

783
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 1: back to Matia, is it.

784
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 2: I don't know. There are all sorts of stories of

785
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 2: what happened to the wise men. That's how they ended

786
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 2: up dead in so many different places. Bodies of the

787
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 2: wise Men are all over the place. The tradition is

788
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,920
Speaker 2: that one of their stopping places on their way back

789
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 2: was the site where the mass Sabah Monastery was later built.

790
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:29,479
Speaker 2: That maybe an old tradition. Who knows, But certainly where

791
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 2: they actually went and what happened to them, we don't know.

792
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: There were I think they went to Damascus. I've read

793
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:39,360
Speaker 1: accounts where there's a tradition that believes they went to

794
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:43,799
Speaker 1: Damascus and may have even Saint Paul may have even

795
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 1: studied with them after his conversion.

796
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 2: Yes, that's in Galatians chapter one. He says, I went

797
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 2: to Arabia for three years? What was he doing there?

798
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 2: Because when he comes back, he has learnt about his

799
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 2: new faith and he roots his new faith earlier than

800
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 2: the time of Moses, which means he roots it in

801
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:09,040
Speaker 2: the First Temple before the Moses traditions became dominant. The

802
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:12,040
Speaker 2: Moses traditions were there in the First Temple, but they

803
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:16,320
Speaker 2: came to dominate in the Second Temple, and they superseded

804
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 2: those of the old royal Messianic culture Melchizedek.

805
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 1: Wow.

806
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then throughout when this gap was filled by

807
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:30,440
Speaker 2: the Moses figure, because over the Second Temple period, Moses

808
00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 2: became more and more important, and he was no longer

809
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:36,320
Speaker 2: the prophet who brought the people out of Israel. He

810
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:39,280
Speaker 2: becomes the God and king of his people. That's Philo.

811
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:43,719
Speaker 1: Margaret Parker, before I let you go, it's Christmas time again.

812
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 1: Families are gathering, they're reading the Nativity story from Luke,

813
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: or they'll hear it again at church. What's the one

814
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: thing they should understand or embrace so they hear it

815
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:58,399
Speaker 1: differently this year and in a deeper way.

816
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 2: Don't try to look for the historical details. You have

817
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 2: investigative documentary films going around saying things like what was

818
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 2: the upper room, what was the lower room, what was

819
00:54:13,040 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 2: the stable, what was this?

820
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:14,719
Speaker 1: What was that?

821
00:54:15,640 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 2: This is not what the story's about. It's a deeply

822
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 2: mysterious record of how the first Christians recorded what they

823
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:32,359
Speaker 2: thought of as significant in those events. They linked them

824
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:40,279
Speaker 2: to the ancient prophecies. They limited their stories to the

825
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 2: parts that linked to the old prophecies. We're not told

826
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 2: what Mary used for nappies because diope as you would

827
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:52,399
Speaker 2: call them, because they know there's no prophecy about those.

828
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:55,800
Speaker 2: But this is the sort of wrong question that is

829
00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:59,319
Speaker 2: asked about the Nativity stories. We accept that they are

830
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:04,399
Speaker 2: a mystery, going deep, deep deep, accept them, love them,

831
00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:07,640
Speaker 2: explore them, and then be thankful for them.

832
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:09,759
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, Well, I love that your work has sort

833
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:13,320
Speaker 1: of unveiled that mystery a bit, particularly this interaction of

834
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 1: the wise men, who I see is the link from

835
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:21,840
Speaker 1: that ancient old temple, that first temple worship that you know,

836
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:24,360
Speaker 1: the first breath of God if you will, among his people,

837
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: and the practice of their faith and becoming of the Messiah.

838
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 1: That really is the link. So for me, the lights

839
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: went on when I started reading your work. I'll give

840
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:33,439
Speaker 1: you the last word.

841
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 2: Well, I'm pleased the lights went on. It's so so important.

842
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:43,359
Speaker 2: We are living in a generation that is losing touch

843
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:48,040
Speaker 2: with real biblical scholarship. It's being seduced and lured away

844
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:52,120
Speaker 2: by all sorts of fashionable things. This sort of discipline,

845
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:55,840
Speaker 2: that sort of study, and they belong in departments university,

846
00:55:55,880 --> 00:56:01,399
Speaker 2: departments of literature, rhetoric, social study, gender studies, all sorts

847
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:04,560
Speaker 2: of things. That's fine study then, but not in a

848
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:09,279
Speaker 2: department of biblical studies. Please, let's stary Bible. We are

849
00:56:09,360 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 2: a discipline. We are an ancient and proud discipline. Selling

850
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 2: out to all these new new kids on the block

851
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:18,920
Speaker 2: is not going to do us any good at all.

852
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Margaret, I also see the contemporary overlays of

853
00:56:23,239 --> 00:56:26,440
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, particularly that early the vying in

854
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:30,239
Speaker 1: that early Temple, the rebellion, if you will, against those

855
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:33,759
Speaker 1: ancient traditions. We see that in Catholicism, even in the

856
00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:37,360
Speaker 1: in the Protestant churches as well, that sort of rebellion

857
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:40,520
Speaker 1: against the old ways, the ancient ways, the expulsion of

858
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 1: the Latin Mass and the rising of the New Mass,

859
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: and that battle still going on. So it feels very

860
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:48,719
Speaker 1: all of this feels very contemporary.

861
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Speaker 2: In some ways, people are destroying what they don't understand

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00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:56,799
Speaker 2: instead of trying to understand it, and that's pity. That's

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00:56:56,880 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 2: a pity. Let's throw out all this old junk because

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00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 2: we don't know what it is. Now, you get through

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00:57:02,040 --> 00:57:05,600
Speaker 2: it and see if you can find why all previous

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00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:08,799
Speaker 2: generations valued it. They could all been wrong.

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Speaker 1: Margaret. I love your insight. I also love that warning.

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Speaker 1: If you will, as we step into Christmas, embrace the mystery.

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Speaker 1: Embrace the mystery that not only of this story, but

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Speaker 1: in the moment we're in and God's hand in our lives.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here.

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Speaker 2: It's been lovely. I've enjoyed it.

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Speaker 1: You know what strikes me about Margaret Barker's work. It

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00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:34,320
Speaker 1: reminds us of the Jewish roots of this Christmas story

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00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 1: we've forgotten. These are Jews operating within the tradition of

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00:57:38,160 --> 00:57:43,400
Speaker 1: ancient Jewish worship, witnessing the fulfillment of these prophecies. And

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00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 1: the magi weren't kings from the Fari's, but very likely

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00:57:47,080 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 1: priests from the Orient, meaning east of Jerusalem. They were

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00:57:50,840 --> 00:57:55,280
Speaker 1: exiled priests, probably carrying these sacred instruments needed to anoint

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00:57:55,800 --> 00:58:00,360
Speaker 1: the royal High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, who

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00:58:00,400 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 1: would enter the Holy of Holies not made by human hands.

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Speaker 1: Margaret Barker's book Christmas the original story is well worth reading,

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Speaker 1: and I hope you'll think about Gold and Frankenson's and

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00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 1: Mr and those Wise Men in a whole new way.

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00:58:14,200 --> 00:58:16,960
Speaker 1: And my picture book The Wise Men Who Found Christmas

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00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:19,560
Speaker 1: is a wonderful way to introduce your family to the

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00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 1: real wise Men. And it's a fun read along, and

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00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 1: it will situate this historically, and I think give the

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00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:32,400
Speaker 1: story and the Wise Men new vitality as you go

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Speaker 1: into the Christmas season. I hope you'll come back to

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Speaker 1: a royal Grande soon. Why live a dry, constricted life

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Speaker 1: when if you fill it with good things, it can

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Speaker 1: flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm Raymond Arroyo.

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Speaker 1: Make sure you subscribe like this episode, Merry, Merry Christmas,

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Speaker 1: and thanks for diving in. We'll see you next time.

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Speaker 1: Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and

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Speaker 1: deep Pe Studios. It's available on the iHeartRadio app or

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00:58:57,720 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Hostoical concipants, half spoken Pocastans experience and spoke concipants half

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Speaker 2: spoken Procastans