The Strange Tale of Balaam and His Talking Donkey

Episode 8: The Strange Tale of Balaam and His Talking Donkey

The seer Balaam from the book of Numbers was famous even outside the Bible. Over time, however, he became seen as an extremely negative figure in Judaism and Christianity. This legacy is complicated by the contents of his oracles, which were believed to predict the Jewish messiah. Oh yeah, and he had donkey that could talk.

Contents:
0:03 - Prologue
0:37 - Balaam outside the Bible
2:34 - The main Balaam story
7:21 - The vilification of Balaam
9:18 - Harmonizing the Balaam stories
11:22 - The talking donkey
13:50 - From villain to messianic prophet
15:51 - Jesus Christ, super star
18:13 - The Balaam blame game
20:21 - Easter egg

Special thanks to John Kesler for consultation and advice.

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Academic sources:
⦾ Jonathan Miles Robker, Balaam in Text and Tradition, 2019
⦾ Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 21–36 (Anchor Yale Bible Commentary), 2000
⦾ Baruch A. Levine, “The Deir ‘Alla Plaster Inscriptions (The Book of Balaam, son of Beor)”, The Context of Scripture, Volume 2, 2000
⦾ John Van Seters, “From Faithful Prophet to Villain: Observations on the Tradition History of the Balaam Story”, in A Biblical Itinerary: In Search of Method, Form and Content, 2009
⦾ Philippe Wajdenbaum, Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible, 2011
⦾ Tzemah L. Yoreh, The First Book of God, 2010

[ahmedjabbar]

With zero exaggerations, your videos on the bible are some of the best ones out there.

[ezee]

Came here after seeing Mythvision HIGHLY RECOMMEND you. And he is right to do so. Great narration, research and humor. Def a fan now.

[feifomania]

This video is amazing. Should have 100x more views.

[Kenshin]

This channel is severely underrated. I feel like I stumbled upon a gem.

[Nylon_riot]

This is very informative, thank you.

[Emymagdalena]

I love it ~♡
Keep up the good work, I appreciate your videos so much

[AvariceAndHubris]

Yes! New upload. I would love to see you partner up with other channels such as Religion for Breakfast or Esoterica.

[daphne]

I don't know if this is the channel creator's voice, but thank you for not using an AI voice!

[jramirez]

This story is flat out amazing, the donkey saw the invisible angel and tried to help his owner and god lets him communicate with balaam. That’s so interesting and amazing to me.

[TypingChimp]

Derek at Mythvision sent me here. New Subscriber.

[mattnewhouse]

Hi Jew here, just wanted to share that archeologists found an altar made to the actual Balaam about a year ago. Cooberates the bible.

[MichaelB-xihk]

Great presentation. I like, comment, and subscribe in response.

[jellyface]

Most followers of the serpent are just tragic. Because they stayed close enough to God to make you think they'll make it but one can only have one master.

[marcussaint]

A strange tale indeed.
A strange Fairy Tale it seems.

[harveywabbit]

The Ass, in this story, is also associated with Bacchus (the sun) who "rides" a donkey. Issachar's standard is the Ass in the Cancer constellation.
Sun worship is found throughout the bible…..For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. Psalm 84.11.
"Then spake Joshua to THE LORD, and said, SUN, stand thou still upon Gibeon! So, THE SUN stood still in the midst of heaven. And there was no day like that, before it or after it, that THE LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man."—Joshua 10.12-14.

[NZCLUB_reals]

Its pretty obvious if you simply ask God for the answer hence the scripture is without conditions nor prejudice clearly stating : "ask, ye shall recieve" - Balaam was indeed an Israelite, but no desire to be with his people & a man of simple faith but foolish loving money more than God. Whenever God left him he quickly returned to his sinful ways like a pig to mud altho it SEEMS the scriptures contradict they actually don't because as we know that whole faithless generation perished in Sinai and Balaam played his part in that via idolatrous Midian but Joshua and his men were immovable hence Balaam died in Joshua's conquest 👆

[BobBobby-rk]

Just because someone gets hired for a job with pay is not GREED. THE NARRATOR IS BLIND AND LACKS THOUGHTS THAT LEAD TO TRUTH