The magic of the oldest biblical manuscript

#maklelan2006

[iamfiefo]

0:46 _reads the subtitles_
They carried little squirrels with them? That's adorable!

[Cor]

When I was a child, I wore a silver "Miraculous Medal" around my neck, as did millions of Catholics then and now. It features mainly an engraving of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a short prayer to her, and while the Church associates it with a promise of heavenly grace, my friends and I wore ours to ward off evil, both moral and physical.

"Plus ça change….”

[hardwork]

The Hebrew Bible is much cooler when you see all the magical roots. It’s cooler when you see all the propaganda and history rewrites, rather than the mostly drier text they churned out of the sausage grinder.

[NWPaul]

That thumbnail tho:
"In the book of The Incredible Hulk..."
I'd watch that.

[benjamintrevino]

The priestly garments are described in detail in Exodus and include:

“Whenever Aaron enters the Holy Place,  he will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastpiece of decision as a continuing memorial before the Lord. 30 Also put the Urim and the Thummim in the breastpiece, so they may be over Aaron’s heart whenever he enters the presence of the Lord. Thus Aaron will always bear the means of making decisions for the Israelites over his heart before the Lord."

Urim and thummim are basically like dice. They were even used to decide who would replace Judas to be the new apostle.

And don't forget about the frankincense and myrrh gifts for baby Jesus.

Magical stuff for a religion that hates magic.

[AurorXZ]

I'd love to find a replica of this—particularly still rolled up as a pendant. It's a lovely gift idea.

[timothymalone]

Thanks for the history lesson. Way older than I would have ever guessed.

[kvpodmj]

The idea of wearing an amulate to ward off evil spirits seems like such a foreign concept to me as a 21st century Christian. But it’s so cool to learn about the roots of my religion and how it changed over time to what we have today.

[maskedsaiyan]

I wonder how different the original manuscripts of the Torah would be from the Masoretic Text.

[markarchy]

Forgot magic in scholarship mean different than my usual definition of magic 😂

[danielgibson]

The actual text of numbers probably post dates those scrolls by a bit. The later author was simply incorporating them into the broader narrative.

[shanegooding]

This the sort of information I love to know. I wonder what other texts we have that predate the Dead Sea scrolls.

[autonomouscollective]

Gotta watch out for those magic squirrels!

[brandonwilson]

*Moshe Idel has entered the chat*

“See y’all? I told you so!”

[BradyPostma]

I'd kinda like a recreation of one of these scrolls to wear. I don't think they'd provide any magical blessings, but I like the idea of continuing a 2, 600-year-old (but harmless) tradition.

[matthewmurdoch]

Man... We are going to feel SO very silly if it turns out we just yoinked some poor dudes magical protection in his afterlife...

[tysfalsehood]

Those are some weird looking squirrels.

[bfastje]

What makes something a magical use in scholarship terms?

[erikkennedy]

I love the thumbnail- The Book of the Incredible Hulk, there's one I missed in Confirmation class.

[icollectstories]

Thank goodness they didn't use them for magical porpoises!