Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - So What Exactly Are Frankincense and Myrrh?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Bible talks of three wise men who travel to Bethlehem bringing gifts to the infant Jesus. Those gifts were gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I think most of you probably have a good conceptual grasp about gold, but what's the deal with frankincense and mer? Were they really that big of a deal that they would bring it as a gift? Learn more about frankincense and mer, what they are, and why they were such a big deal on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep, only to have your mind start racing the moment

Starting point is 00:00:40 your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:01:21 Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. The association of Frankencence and Mur comes to us from the Bible, in particular the passages about the three magi who visit the infant Jesus. The subject of who the three wise men were, I'm going to leave for a future Christmas episode. For the purposes of this episode, I'm just going to focus on their gifts. The entire episode is only given a few lines in the Bible, in particular comes from Matthew 2 verses 1 through 12. It says, and I'm going to edit it a bit for length, quote, in the time of King Herod after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem asking, where is the child who has been born King of the Jews? For we

Starting point is 00:02:03 observed his star at its rising and have come to pay him homage. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chest, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and mer. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path. End quote. So they brought Jesus' three gifts, gold, frankincense, and mer. I think most of us have a pretty good grasp on gold. We know what gold is. We know why they would have brought it as a gift. And if someone offered us gold as a gift, we would probably gladly accept it. But what's the deal? But what's the deal?

Starting point is 00:02:42 deal with frankincense and myrr. Most of us don't have a lot of frankincense and mur laying around, and it isn't something most of us have in our shopping lists. Even if you have a rudimentary knowledge of ancient history, frankincense and mure might still not be something that would top the list of gifts you'd give someone. Silver, precious gems, exotic animals, expensive cloth, would probably be higher up the gift chain in the ancient world. To figure this out, we first have to know what frankincense and Mur are, because, to be totally honest, most people really don't have a clue what they are. Both frankincense and mur are tree resins. In fact, they both come from trees in the Bursaraci

Starting point is 00:03:18 family. Let's first start with frankincense. Frankens comes from the Boswellia tree. Its English name comes from the old French phrase, Frank Ensense, which means high-quality incense. The Boswellia tree is a rather scraggly tree, and getting resin from it isn't like getting maple syrup. You can't just tap it to get what you want. In order to harvest frankincense, you have to injure the tree, but not kill it. This is done by placing incisions into the bark of the tree. If it is done properly, it will induce what is called gumosis. As the name implies, the tree will then gum up the wounds in the bark with resin. This gummy substance is then harvested as frankincense. Because the trees are rather small, it grows in an arid region, and there are only

Starting point is 00:04:00 so many cuts you can put on a tree, frankincense production is limited. The primary region for producing frankincense is in southern Arabia, in particular what are today the countries of Oman and Yemen. There are also production areas on the other side of the Red Sea in Somalia and Djibouti. Frankencence has been described as looking similar to white raisins, at least the high-quality stuff is. There was an entire ancient trading network set up to transport frankincense from southern Arabia to areas all over the known ancient world, which took it from China, as well as the

Starting point is 00:04:30 farthest reaches of the Roman Empire. So, what is it used for? It had many uses. The Chinese used it as an antibacterial agent as well as for pain relief and an enormous number of other things. The Egyptians used it for mummification. It can be distilled into an essential oil which is also used for medicinal purposes today. However, the overwhelming use of frankincense was and is incense. If you've ever been to church service that used an incense burner and it had that distinct church smell, it was almost certainly frankincense. I actually remember shopping in the sook and must. Skate Oman, and one of the most popular items for sale was frankincense and incense burners. Today, frankincense really isn't terribly expensive. You can buy a pound of it on Amazon for about $15. So, what about Mur? The word Murr comes from various Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Arabic, and the word means bitter. The word in English comes from the Bible. Murr comes from the tree Kamiaphora Murah. It's also grown in southern Arabia, but much

Starting point is 00:05:29 more of it is grown in eastern Africa, particularly Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. It's darker in color than frankincense, and it's often reddish. The process of harvesting myrrh is pretty much the same as what's used for frankincense. Trees are cut, so the resin will fill in the cuts, and then the gummy resin is chipped off the tree. The primary historical use of myrrh was as a perfume. It's mentioned several times in the Old Testament. In addition to being one of the gifts of the Magi, was also offered to Jesus during his crucifixion, as well as being used to prepare his body for burial. Likewise, it was also used and still as today as incense. As with frankincense, there are also medicinal uses for mer. It has blood-moving properties in Chinese

Starting point is 00:06:09 medicine, as well as uses in Indian and Arab medicine. So, okay, frankincense and mer are nice smelling tree resins, and they add medicinal uses. It still doesn't answer the question of why these would have been selected as valuable gifts. The answer is because they were valuable at that time. Any exotic substance which had to travel long distances was prized. Just think of the distances people traveled and the money invested just to get spices, something that you can buy for cheap in any grocery store today. Today, doing some back-of-the-napkin calculations, gold is about 2,000 times more valuable than either frankincense or mer.

Starting point is 00:06:47 However, 2,000 years ago, they were probably much closer in value, and some historians have theorized they might have actually been near equal value by weight. So the reason why gold, frankincense, and myrrh were brought as gifts is that at that time, they were all considered to be very valuable. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Alex TD over at Apple Podcasts in Great Britain. They write, Addictive Education. This podcast is excellent, and I have learned so much. I found it when wondering about San Marino after England played them in the Euros. Now I have listened to over 300 episodes in a matter of weeks. Thanks, Alex.

Starting point is 00:07:32 True story. I was once in Paris and walked past a pub at night that had a bunch of rowdy Brits in it. I stepped in, and it was a bunch of English football fans watching them take on Andorra. It hardly seemed like a fair fight. Remember, if you leave a review or send in a question, you two can have it run on the show. We are three wise men. What? We are three wise men.

Starting point is 00:07:57 Well, what are you doing, creeping out on the car shed at two o'clock in the morning? That doesn't sound bad. wise to me. We are astrologers. We have come from the east. Is this some kind of joke? We wish to praise the infant. We must pay homage to him.

Starting point is 00:08:13 Homage? You all drunk. It's disgusting. Al! Come on out! No. Bursing me here with tales about Oriental fortune tellers. Come on out. No, no, we must see him. Go and pray someone else is back. Go on. We were led by a star.

Starting point is 00:08:26 Led by a bottle of all right. Go on out. We must see him. We have brought presents. Out! Gold, frankincense, mar. Well, why didn't you say he's over there? Sorry, the place is a bit of a mess. It is a valuable bomb. Barm for him, I bite him.

Starting point is 00:08:48 What? That's a dangerous animal. Quick, right in the trough. No, it isn't. Yes, it is. It's great. No, no, no, it is an ointment. Well, there is an animal called a bomb.

Starting point is 00:08:58 Or did I dream it? So you're astrologers, are you? Well, what is he then? Hmm? What star sign is he? Capricorn? Capricorn, eh? What are they like? He's the son of God.

Starting point is 00:09:13 Our Messiah. King of the Jews. That's Capricorn, is it? No, no, no, that's just him. Oh, I was going to say, otherwise it'd be a lot of them. By what name are you calling him? Oh, Brian! We worship you, O'Brien, who are Lord over us all.

Starting point is 00:09:31 Praise unto you, Brian, and to the Lord our Father. Amen. Do you do a lot of this then? What? It's praising. No, no, no, no. Well, thanks a lot for the golden frankincense. But don't worry too much about the meur next time, all right?

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - So What Exactly Are Frankincense and Myrrh?

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