The last couple of conversations we worked on who this Herod guy is where he fits in the story where did he come from historically what would be his motivations and what we see is kind of a deranged weirdo who would have imposter syndrome wouldn't really be able to make a good case for why he's

actually where he is, and the people who put him in power quickly thereafter died.

So the dude's erratic and weird and threatened and paranoid.

And along come these magi from the east.

And the story goes like this, verse one.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Judea

during the time of King Herod,

Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, where's the one who's been

born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the East and have come to worship him.

All right, so we got a couple questions here. What's the deal with the Magi? What's the deal

with the star?

And as we get into that, I'm super happy to be able to say once again

just in passing here that this week of the podcast

is sponsored by Dwell.

It's an audio Bible app.

You can get it on your iPhone, your Android. It's awesome. They got a free trial. Just go search it either place. Check it out. I think it dovetails really beautifully with what we're doing on this Magi is plural of the Latin Magus or the Greek word I think it's Magas, almost the same thing.

But this refers to somebody who literally does magic for a living.

They get paid to sourcearize.

Now I don't know if this ever actually worked or not but over on the

YouTube channel I did a whole bunch in one episode on the ancient magical practices and some of the old magic scrolls and books that have been unearthed

that were in use. It's just fascinating. There was magic that was done to hex opponents in sports or politics to make somebody love you who maybe wouldn't love you otherwise.

I mean this is crazy stuff. There were potioners and look I mean I'm sure some people would be like yeah and that's

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