The magic of the oldest biblical manuscript

#maklelan2006

[@iamfiefo]

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

[@MarcosElMalo2]

SILVER squirrels. Band name or super hero? Edit: OK, I’ve come up with an awesome band name. The Dead Sea Squirrels.

[@GoodieWhiteHat]

😂

[@TeamBonkersConkers]

Everyone in England carries sacred squirrels. You don't?!?!

[@Cor6196]

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….”

[@thescoobymike]

Yeah there’s definitely lots of Catholics who treat it like it’s magic but they’d never admit to it. They’ll put miraculous medals in secret places to ward off evil or to convert people.

[@johnburn8031]

I remember my godmother gave me one at my confirmation service.

[@haramanggapuja]

@@johnburn8031Yeah! Me too! We had more magical bling than a 21st Century rapper. But rabbit’s foot was verboten ;-)

[@hardwork8395]

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.

[@pansepot1490]

Couldn’t agree more! 👍 Also makes more sense, I mean you understand what’s behind the composition of certain parts that leave you 😳😳😳

[@Sewblon]

what are you talking about?

[@NWPaul72]

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

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Watch it? You’d have to read it. But I must caution you, it was written in an older archaic form of English. You might need an expert comicologist to help you translate it accurately into modern English.

[@benjamintrevino325]

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.

[@markarchy]

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

[@rager4able]

What does he mean?

[@markarchy]

@@rager4able not in pop culture way, amulet, charms, spell, etc

[@rager4able]

@@markarchy ok, but what does it mean?

[@markarchy]

By magic? The practice of magic based on the historical believe.

[@DneilB007]

@@rager4ableTypically (and specifically in this context) magic in archaeological terms involves an attempt to have superhuman beings (gods, spirits, demons, etc) either protect the person invoking them or cause harm to opponents of the person invoking them. It can also include artifacts that are used to control or confine a superhuman being within the artifact or to repulse the superhuman being from the vicinity of the artifact.

[@timothymalone7067]

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

[@bristolrovers27]

Thanks Dan, interesting as always

[@autonomouscollective2599]

Gotta watch out for those magic squirrels!

[@user-kv1po2dm5j]

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.

[@brandonwilson5218]

*Moshe Idel has entered the chat* “See y’all? I told you so!”

[@welcometonebalia]

Thank you.

[@thatonedude2099]

Yeah yeah you believe in magic in 600bce but how about magic in a young girls heart? lol cool video Dan I also like to hear about such old surviving texts, especially that imply different practices than commonly known

[@bilbobaggins5938]

Well, removing a young girl's heart could be messy, but I suppose it might also be a good protective amulet.

[@soundmattersuk]

​@@bilbobaggins5938not for the young girl though...

[@RD-jc2eu]

@@bilbobaggins5938 Well, if you're worried 'bout the mess, you could do it like an old-time movie, then it would just be special effects messy. But you don't even really need to do that, since the magic is really in the music, anyway.

[@maskedsaiyan1738]

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

[@hardwork8395]

It would be fascinating to see all the variant texts, just like with the NT. I think the older ones would have been cool to read with all the magic and deities being so much more overt than they are today.

[@JopJio]

There is no original torah, because the 5 books were written by many different authors in different times.

[@residuejunkie4321]

*They have all been supernaturally changed by the AC into his UNholy word just like all bibles have.*

[@deprogrammershepherd1234]

​@@residuejunkie4321🎯💯

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@JopJio This is true. What is interesting is that the various texts were based on older oral traditions of pastoralists. One can presume that the oral traditions didn’t evolve independently or in isolation. At some point they were written down, and at some later point they were collected together. These moments are like snapshots. Every succeeding change can be considered a snapshot. It’s would be to compare an “original” snapshot with a later one. The difficulty is in knowing when a tradition was first recorded (afaict, no “original” manuscript has been discovered) so the best we can do is work with whatever is known to be an earliest example. Maybe I’m misjudging the discussion here, but I don’t think anyone here is saying, “If only we could find the Ur-text, we could have the one true religion as dictated by God.” I think the interest here is the evolution of belief.

[@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.

[@pansepot1490]

There’s a Jewish sect that still today uses to wear small scrolls in small boxes tied to the forehead? Sorry, but I have an awful memory for details. I saw it in a documentary: a shop in Jerusalem was selling those things. You can google it if you are interested: nowadays one can buy almost anything online.

[@matthewmurdoch6932]

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

[@danielgibson8799]

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

[@shanegooding4839]

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

[@SterlingTate]

The unintentional gray hulk print

[@erikkennedy8725]

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

[@tysfalsehood]

Those are some weird looking squirrels.

[@dirkfunk6118]

What afterlife is in view ca. 600 BCE?

[@icollectstories5702]

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

[@rager4able]

What magical purposes?

[@bfastje]

What makes something a magical use in scholarship terms?

[@bubbles581]

Used to ward off evil, attract blessings, cause supernatural things to happen, etc (according to beleifs of the person who owned or created the object anyway, academics doesn't make a judgement call about the items actual effectiveness)

[@bfastje]

@bubbles581 so then, is a prayer for someone to recover magical in an academic sense?

[@RD-jc2eu]

@@bfastje I think that sort of depends on what the person saying the prayer actually believes the purpose of the prayer to be. There are still plenty of people today who pray with a "magical thinking" mind-set, and there others who pray with a different notion of why they're praying (i.e., "outward-directed" prayer vs. "inward-directed" prayer).

[@alanb8884]

Condemned that person by removing it, lol

[@danjohnston9037]

So the oldest biblical manuscript of any kind, only comes from around 600 B.C.E. ? Which is like 200 years AFTER Homer wrote down the Iliad ? What a buzz-kill that must be for some people

[@danjohnston9037]

@@infiniti28160 Nothing wrong with hugging your teddy. Just don't try hugging a real one.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Do people really believe that mankind was uni-cultural and had the same level of cultural development? Writing was not universally adopted across all cultures at the same time. Not all cultures had (or currently have) equal levels of literacy. Jewish pastoralists would likely not be writing down their oral traditions at the same time Greek urbanites were recording Greek oral traditions into written documents (such as the Iliad or the Odyssey). Or if they were recording their oral traditions earlier, we don’t know it because we haven’t found such documents. The only claim you can make is that there is strong evidence that one culture recorded its oral tradition earlier than the other. It’s going to be much harder to determine which oral tradition is older. So whose buzz is this supposed to kill?

[@danjohnston9037]

@@MarcosElMalo2 " Do people really believe ? " Yes, willfully ignorant people exist, one example being those who believe the planet is only 6,000 years old. " So whose buzz is this supposed to kill ? " Those people, especially those with the habit of asserting their belifes upon others.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@infiniti28160You misunderstood me. I would not claim anything about which is best. I am pointing to the futility of trying to determine which tradition is oldest if the traditions crosses into prehistory. And I don’t see how this kills anyone’s buzz.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@danjohnston9037Yes, but their intensely willful ignorance is a tried and true defense against any threat to their buzz. No buzzes are being harmed according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Buzzes (ASPCB). Put another way, if you give a heroin addict all the facts of the dangers of heroin, heroin will still make them high. And looking at this from another angle, challenging a willfully ignorant person with data could actually increase their buzz. It’s releasing cortisol or other hormones into their bloodstreams.

[@OrdoMallius]

Did you see that new tech that can read text from burnt carbonated remains of scrolls thrown in fire?

[@thescoobymike]

The magic of the oldest Hulk manuscript

[@jordancasti11o]

Scriptures written on metal around 600 BC? Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! The Book of Mormon!

[@thescoobymike]

lol

[@creamwobbly]

Heh and the cultists of today refusing to watch TV that ‘includes magic’. One time my coworker shat that out of his face I told him stop working with computers then because it's all magic spells and little dæmons. ‘No, in computers that's pronounced _daymin_ they're not demons.’ ffs

[@andrewericjamesclark6808]

Are you talking about what Wescott and Hort perverted?

[@solidstorm6129]

Huh?

[@Darisiabgal7573]

I am guessing you decided not to give a reading because you knew I would give the reading. “...] YHWH ... [...] the grea[t ... who keeps] the covenant and [G]raciousness towards those who love [him] and (alt: [hi]m;) those who keep [his commandments ... ...]. the Eternal? [...]. [the?] blessing more than any [sna]re and more than Evil. For redemption is in him. For YHWH is our restorer [and] rock. May YHWH bles[s] you and [may he] keep you. [May] YHWH make [his face] shine ...” What happened to that commandment thou shalt not take the lord, they god, name in vain. I guess the KJV was not good enough for this writer. Well! Serves him right, cause if he was buried with it, it probably didn’t offer him too much protection😂

[@willernst2721]

Something that amazes me about this channel is how nany people commenting have never read a Bible. The Old Testament is full of stories of the Israelites turning away from God to follow false gods and practice sorcery. It literally happens over and over again. As for the claim that the scroll was being worn for 'magical' purposes, as a nonbelieving scholars he would say that anything pertaining to anything spiritual in nature is for magical purposes. It was worn close to the heart, same reason a lot of people wear things close to their heart and saying it was there for any other reason is an unfounded guess at best as no one actually knows.

[@RD-jc2eu]

The "magical" practice he's referring to is one that's found to recur in multiple cultures/societies across that part of the world in ancient times. It's being interpreted here as having a "magical purpose" by reason of its analogous characteristics to those "magical" practices in those multiple other cultures. This appears to me to be a reasonable and viable interpretation. Unless, of course, what you're claiming is that, yes, while this object and the visual evidence of its use SEEMS to look the same as what all of those other cultures were doing, in truth, ONLY those engaging in this practice who existed in the tradition that I claim to be a part of were doing it for the RIGHT reasons (not those smelly old paganistic reasons). Is that your claim? Are you really wishing to sell us on something that boils down to the "no true Scotsman" argument?

[@willernst2721]

@@RD-jc2eu sorry, I never got a notification of this comment. Anyway, I'm not 'selling' anything to anyone, I'm stating a fact, which is he doesn't actually know any bit of the why involved in the discovery. 'It's reasonable to believe' isn't data, it's dogma.

[@residuejunkie4321]

*The Dead Sea Scrolls and all of the other ancient manuscripts were magically changed to match the changes made in the KJV. Read Amos **8:11** and type in (proof of bible change residue junkie) so you won't have to hear Jesus explaining this at the Gate with all the other lost.*

[@deprogrammershepherd1234]

Praise YHWH!

[@johnburn8031]

But didn't Jesus ssy: "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matthew 9:13, NIV) And Paul say: "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day." (Colossians 2:16, NIV)

[@residuejunkie4321]

​@@johnburn8031*What does that have to do with the fact that all bibles have been magically destroyed?*

[@JopJio]

​​​@@johnburn8031 1. The first is a torah quote and that does not abrograte animal sacrifices, the same book confirms them 2. Paul is no authority. He wasnt even chrisitian when Jesus was around. Peter, James and John or Barnabas wanted Gentiles to keep the law in Galatians 2 12 to 14. Mary still kept the sabbath after Jesus. And this also contradicts Acts 15 where we find 2 or 3 food commandments.

[@johnburn8031]

@@residuejunkie4321 what has Amos 8:11 Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition 11 Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send forth a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. Got to do with any of the stuff you wrote?