Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Myrrh

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy podcaster/creator Jesse Thorn (Maximum Fun, 'Bullseye') for a look at why myrrh is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Murr, known for being a gift, famous for being for Jesus. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why Murr is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Jesse Thorne is my guest today, and I sort of assume you know that name. If you like podcasting, if you like funny things, if you just like, you know, having fun, having maximum fun, so to speak. If you have never heard a show from the wonderful independent artist collective

that is known as Maximum Fun, I'm very excited for you to get to check that out and have just an enormous endless pile of joy fall upon you. And if you have heard Maximum Fun shows, you probably know who Jesse Thorne is. You also may know him from non-Max Fun stuff, because in addition to making Jordan Jesse Go, and making Judge John Hodgman, and guesting on a bunch of things, he also hosts Bullseye, which is a co-production of Maximum Fun and NPR. He made a whole nother incredible podcast about the art of interviewing, it's called The Turnaround, and he's done many, many more things from there. There is a decent chance Jesse Thorne is the podcaster I have heard the most.

Just full stop. Like, he's that great and that prolific, and so it's a real joy to have him on this podcast for a really special episode. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples, acknowledge Jesse recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Wartongva and Keech and Chumash peoples, and acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about Myrrh, spelled M-Y-R-R-H,

Myrrh. Myrrh is a patron chosen topic. Thank you very, very much to Joel Samitaro. Buddy, amazing topic. I'm so glad we're talking about this. This topic of Myrrh led to, I think, one of my favorite episodes ever. Also going in, I flipped the stats segment into the middle of the show to make the format work, and you will hear why. Also, I think my background really helped me prep this and put it together. As we'll discuss, I grew up going to multiple churches. My dad's Catholic church, my mom's Presbyterian church. I am not a practicing Christian now, but I think myrrh is one of the single best known topics in all of that entire belief system, mainly because it's an element of Christmas. And then one heads up about, you know, research sources and text sources for this episode. When I draw on the Bible, which we will, because that is

kind of how people have heard of this topic, we're going to go from a version called the New International Version. I picked the NIV because it's very common in English language churches. It's also the default setting of the website called BibleGateway.com, which is a very common reference online for seeing the text of the Bible. And we're also working off of way more things than just the Bible, because Murr has history and science and other elements that go beyond Christian tradition. And so I think this is a truly exciting episode about a ubiquitous thing that no one understands or knows any of the details of. It's really exciting to talk about myrrh. So please sit back or get one last big ol' whiff of that box of myrrh, because once you give

it to the baby, it's the baby's now, right? You don't get the whiff anymore. You don't get the smell. You don't get the bitter. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Jesse Thorne. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. jesse thorne thank you so much for being here and i always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it so how do you feel about mer do you know what mer is that is the first thing we'll get into yeah so that that is thank goodness yeah gold i got frankincense maybe yeah this this one is a patron chosen topic and i think it's because everybody like i don't know what faith you grew up with if if any, but my dad is Catholic, my mom's Presbyterian. I went to both churches at once.

Presbyterians are a Protestant denomination, if people don't know. Everybody learned that set of gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the Nativity story. Right. And we never explored what myrrh is past that. Well, I think it really speaks to the extent to which in the ancient world, just what everyone just wanted was like salt and things that made things stink less. That was the two. They hadn't figured out about medicine yet. So the most valuable things were things that overlaid on top of funk and things to make slightly spoiled meat taste okay. Yeah. Or even like you said, one of these recently about labor unions.

And one thing we talked about was a strike among pyramid builders in ancient Egypt. And it turns out they were paid in ointments along with food like if you could get like ointment was part of the paycheck for doing it because that was really hard we demand unguents and ointments it really is crazy to think of how differently people lived in not just the normal way like you know that they all just died at 30 but besides that and you know that there were like whole continents of people that only ate potatoes but like besides those things it's just like learning that they only invented forks in like 1770 or something yeah that's what really blows your mind

are you uh are you a big fan of history we've never really talked about it we haven't talked a bunch but we haven't really talked about that before no i've nothing have nothing but contempt I do subscribe to this subreddit called Ask Food Historian. Oh, okay. And it's just people posting like who ate chili peppers first or something. And that is fantastic. That is just great top to bottom. It's crazy to me that there are enough people who know the answers that they can populate a pretty active reddit community so like every time someone posts one of those questions i

think no one is going to know or care about the answer to this and then like what was the first potato like or like how did ancient greeks make cheese or whatever like they know the answers to all those questions and that i love that yeah there's this uh bill bryson book called at home and you know he writes mostly like he's sort of comic personal essays but he's recently moved into comic broad strokes non-fiction on various subjects and this one is like a history of domestic life and that i found completely compelling from top to bottom and the most compelling part by far was just this whole chapter about what rich people ate in the middle age, which the answer is as many different things as they could obtain. Like that was the sign of how rich you were was how many different things you

ate and mostly different types of birds. So they would have a feast and they would just have 14 kinds of bird that they were eating just they ate all birds every bird like sure yeah robins robins to ostriches the whole and you showed off by having many sizes and types of bird like that's what the 4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie thing is, is they would eat blackbirds in pie. They would eat just like you and I would eat a chicken pot pie. They'd eat a blackbird pot pie just because that's what they caught that day. And it would be so significant to everyone. It becomes a rhyme that is immortal for the rest

of time. Like the one time we got 24 blackbirds and put them in one thing. I know. Let's remember it forever. Absolutely bananas. But yeah, the fact that no one had invented forks really messed me up. But yeah, that's what I think about when I think about gold, frankincense, and myrrh,

that you think that those were the most treasured things you could bring to the son of God. Like, I don't remember if the wise men were a hundred percent aware that he was the son of God or whether they were just called. I don't remember how that part of the story goes. Like if they're just following that star because they think something important's at the end of the road or because they know he was the son of God, but that was the most important, either way, was the most important,

either way, the three most important things they could come up with to bring were gold and whatever frankincense and myrrh are. I think they're smells, aren't they? This is the perfect time to get into it. Yeah. Cause on, uh, on most episodes of this show, it's like a set of stats and numbers and then a couple of big takeaways. But this week we just need to start with a first takeaway of what the heck myrrh is it's it's like obviously the the key thing so here we go into takeaway number one myrrh is a secretion from a tree thank you with a bunch of useful

properties that have been known for thousands of years. Oh, I love a tree secretion, don't you? I mean, I always think of maple syrup when I think about that. And it turns out that it's great. Whenever I get my trees groomed, I always have the groomer secrete the trees because I don't want to do it. You know what I mean? Right. I don't want to do it.

Yeah. Like, you know, you express the glands. I'll tip you. Just please. Please secrete the trees. I don't want them dragging around on my carpet. Yeah. And the basics of myr here, just really interesting.

And also like the people in Bible times or writing the Bible knew about most of them, like they were aware of it. And there's a couple of key sources here. I've got a Time Magazine interview with Kristen Swenson, who's an associate professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, VCU. Also pieced by Carmen. Shouts to VCU. Was it? We're just giving it some big ups to VCU. I'm glad that you clarified that Virginia Commonwealth University was VCU. Texas A&M University, agriculture and mining. It's sort of like how I've only heard of Merck because of one line in the Bible. I've only heard of VCU because of the March Madness tournament. But then I feel good about knowing extra things about it.

It's great. That is a time to learn that colleges exist. There's no question about that. And then I also got a piece here by Carmen Drahl for Chemical and Engineering News, and then a book called Journey of the Magi by writer Paul William Roberts. But the upshot here is that myrrh is a viscous secretion from specific trees and it turns out frankincense is also that it just comes from different trees and has a slightly different smell and purpose sure so what we're what we're saying is get ready for it these magi were a bunch of saps thank you thank. Professional humorist.

Doesn't even make sense. Doesn't even, the pieces don't even fit together right. But what are the properties of myrrh? The thing that is like myrrh to be given is a gum resin. that is like myrrh to be given is a gum resin. What happens is people, there's a specific tree genus called Camphora that grows in the Arabian Peninsula, India, and Northeastern Africa.

And what humans do is they cut big slices into the side of the tree, and then milky resin comes out, and then they dry that and collect that, and then they get a gunk. Is this a camphor tree is that the same thing camphor c-a-m-p-h-o-r it might be similar i don't really know anything about camphor but i'll link about it if there's something okay yeah great uh because the frankincense

comes from another genus called boswellia there's just a lot of like middle eastern south asian trees going on here is that related at all to legendary sports columnist thomas boswellia there's just a lot of like middle eastern south asian trees going on here is that related at all to legendary sports columnist thomas boswell no just saying words that sound like other words at this point to seem smart he was the fourth wise man it's pretty well underreported yeah so he invented total bases i think like even even at birth the scouts were looking at jesus right the sports writers were out there he had the good face they looked at him they could see he had the good face have you heard of the good face alex this is a sidebar but have you heard of the good face i i really like moneyball and yes uh yeah i think i read that book in one sitting which is the last time i've done that and i read it like years ago

yeah yeah it makes me uh that book i'm enough of a baseball nerd that i like got mad at that book the way that um uh the way that like lawyers get mad when they're watching, uh, LA law. Oh, you know what I mean? Like Allie McBeal, they're mad at it because they didn't do the right kind of motion. And that's how I felt about money ball. I was like,

there are small, there are small things being elided in these descriptions that are important. I don't remember what they were though. Well, cause also you're, if I remember right, you're either an A's fan or a Giants fan or both, but like it must've been close to home. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a, uh, I'm from San Francisco, but my dad, so I'm, I'm a Giants fan primarily, but my dad was born and raised in Kansas city and, uh, lived in Oakland for 20 years or so. So he was an A's fan. So in the Bay Area, it's not a big, it's not like Chicago or New York where the teams hate each

other. There are, at this point, the A's have been so badly abused by, the A's fans have been so badly abused by their ownership that I think they have a little kind of like little brother resentment towards the Giants. But when I was a kid, the A's were better than the Giants and it was a generally friendly relationship. Okay. Yeah. Cause then they had like McGuire and Canseco and everybody. And then in Moneyball times, the book kind of elides the team was also good because they had three godlike pitchers all at once and that kind of stuff. Yeah, there's a lot. A lot was a lot.

Look, we don't need to get into me as a 10 year old reading the Bill James baseball abstracts. This is about Murr, dang it. Let's get back to these famous saps. Let's move one very large book off the table and a different large book onto the table and then proceed yeah and with this this sap it had it has a bunch of different uses and some of them actually line up with frankincense like the the magi were almost kind of doubling up with this gift because both things can be used as an incense and both can be used to make perfume and have been used in religious and spiritual settings for thousands of years. Yeah.

I mean, that sounds about right there. I mean, think about how much of luxury before the 20th century was just about not smelling poop. Yep. Like our bodies are designed to hate the smell of poop more than anything, except for maybe the smell of death, right? Yeah, that's about right. And most human beings were just surrounded by poop. Once the population density got to a certain point, just most human beings were just constantly surrounded by poop once the population density got to a certain point just

most human beings were just constantly surrounded by poop all like to be rich was just to know the smell of something other than poop yes that's what they wanted the christ child to have the gift of two non-poop smells. He's in a manger. That's where poops are. If you were able to get myrrh or frankincense, that was very valuable. Myrrh is kind of all over the Bible because it's always been useful for this. It's described as a perfume in the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. It pops up in the book of Exodus as the base of an oil used for ritual anointing. And also myrrh. I've never smelled either thing. I just didn't have a way to do it before we taped, but apparently myrrh has a more bitter smell. The name myrrh comes from a Hebrew word meaning

bitter. So of the two, you might actually want to burn some frankincense. It might be nicer. Love anointment. We have no choice but to stand this legendary ablution. Anointment. Yeah. There is a lot of anointing in the Bible. It's very heavy on anointments.

Yeah. There's this, I don't know if you know the comedian Dwayne Kennedy. He's one of my favorites. Brilliant, brilliant comedian. And I never stop thinking about this joke that he has. He goes, you know, I've been reading the Bible lately. There's a lot of, and you're going to have to bleep this out. I've been reading the Bible lately, and there's a lot of two things in the Bible.

Number one is wine. Number two is that's hard to believe. I think there's a number three. I think it's fair to say anointing. Anointing with oils. Wine. So much wine in the Bible. That's even like, especially in the Catholic church, my dad's church, there was a lot of anointing just in the modern day in Northern Illinois. You'd get holy water and then he he would, he would usually go in the morning on Ash Wednesdays. So then like, I'm up for breakfast. And even though it happens every

year, I would like jump when I saw all the ash on his forehead, you know, like there's a lot of placing of things and I'm sure it's in a bunch of cultures and religions, but they, they keep it going. They still do it. Do you get anointed other than, I mean, I think in, I was, I was, was, and I went to Episcopalian church and worked in an Episcopalian church and Episcopalian church, not that far ritual wise, culturally, there's a little bit of difference, but ritually not that far from Catholic church. Yeah, that's right. And like, we definitely had anointments for baptisms. I don't necessarily remember being anointed at other times though. Maybe I was,

there definitely was a font. I mean, there was a font. There's, I'm not trying, I'm not sitting here trying to tell you there was no font, Alex, but I asked questions about fonts. It's true. Yeah.

I'll leave the hardball hardball questions about fonts to Roman Mars and 99% invisible. But, um, what, what, what specific anointments did you engage in, in, in Catholic churches again? Maybe it doesn't count as anointing but there was a lot of like sort of i'm doing it visually like whisking holy water over us as a group oh yeah and then yeah where they do it with that kind of like umpire dust broom yes yeah i love how much baseball is connecting uh yeah. And yeah. And then I, if I remember right, either first communion or confirmation or both, there was some like holy water on the forehead. And there was also, cause there was a little font of water, the whole head shouldn't just

call it water. There was holy water. And then like on the way in or out, you could take some with your finger and give yourself a sign of the cross on the forehead. It was also a thing. Oh, we did have, that was, the font was by the door. And that's why the font was by the door. And everybody knew it.

Because the thing is, is I went to a pretty regular Episcopalian church in childhood. And I mean, there's, you know, there's two branches of the Episcopalian church. There are the ones that hate women and gays, and they're the ones that don't. And I went to the ones that don't. women and gays, and they're the ones that don't. And I went to the ones that don't. So it was, it was not the ones that tried to split off from the church because gays existed, but it was otherwise pretty regular, like a very, you know, very churchy looking church, pretty churchy stuff going on in the church. Like our bishop was gay at the time this is in the 80s um but like oh wow the the liturgy and everything pretty regular but then i went with my dad and were

eventually worked at this episcopalian church that was absolutely wild like just the wildest just like borrowing a little bit from everything in the world and like a painting of Malcolm X on the wall and like special dances that you did. But at the reverent church, the tradition, the quiet reverent church, there was a font by the door. And I think I do remember people anointing them, giving themselves a little something, something. Yeah. Out of the. Like nobody questioned it if you didn't do it, giving themselves a little something, something. Yeah. Out of the... Like, nobody questioned it if you didn't do it, but it was very common. Right.

Like, most people kind of swung through. Yeah. Yeah. Let me hit that up real quick. Basically, yeah. And then let's go get the good pew. Hurry up. You know?

Yeah. And then beyond the anointing and senses perfumes, there are additional uses of myrrh that were probably more famous at the time. And it's part of making it kind of a strange baby gift. According to Professor Kristen Swenson, myrrh is the quote unquote outlier in the set of gifts for Jesus because gold is money and frankincense smells very good. Myrrh had two other main uses that make it kind of strange in this context. And one of them is that it's a pretty powerful pain reliever. A lot of people would, you know, mix it with something like wine or something else. And there aren't many scientific studies of this in the modern day, and most of them are done on mice. So that's not helpful for understanding people so much. But ancient people through trial and error said this is one of the better pain relievers available. And that today is what the mice tell us. Mice have reported to researchers that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I believe that, Alex. I also think that most things, when mixed with enough wine, are a pretty powerful pain reliever.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that helped. That was definitely part of it. Olive oil. A pebble. Right. Me just doing kind of magic fingers over it first yeah wine and that's hard to believe just thinking about the joke yeah great joke one of the best jokes of all time well and then the the other other use ofrrh here, which was possibly the biggest association with it at the time, was that myrrh was used for funerals because myrrh works as an embalming fluid and an embalming chemical.

And it was especially common in ancient Egypt for like preserving a dead body. And for a few reasons, that makes it very strange as a gift to new parents and their baby. No matter how valuable it is, it's like this narcotic that's also an embalming fluid is, I guess, something they were supposed to sell. I don't know. I don't know. I can see why you would want the pain relief. I mean, there's a lot of pain involved in the process of bringing human life into the world, even in a virgin birth context.

But the embalming is a little dark. Although, later on, Alex, it turned out to be kind of his whole thing. That's exactly what apparently some theologians say. Like, it's foreshadowing of the important sacrifice Jesus would make as an adult. And so that's why it's in the story. And it's, it's almost sort of a metaphor rather than a list of actual gifts. Hmm. I see personally, I see the Bible as sort of a literal list of gifts, like a kind of FAO Schwartz catalog of its time. like a kind of F.A.O. Schwartz catalog of its time. Right. How many cubits you want to buy?

We got it in stock. Like a Harry and David thing. You won't believe these apples. I don't know enough about the Bible to do Bible humor. Like this edible arrangement of loaves and fishes. It's just really spilling all over the house. If we can take it in, reel it in, please. Did you read the Bible as a, as a child? Like you went to two different churches, both, both used the, both used the same, the same

set of books. Pretty much. Did you like read them directly? I did when I was like, I think I was like nine or 10 and I decided to gradually read it one time. I think I set myself to do 10 chapters a day. I felt like that was a workable rate. And then I just read the entire thing and found that long stretches of it were pretty incomprehensible to me. Or where else like record keeping, like the book of numbers is record keeping. That's, that's all I got out of it.

So you decided to do that and then actually did it? Yeah. Yeah. I, I was, uh, I, I was pretty good at homework. I think I did well in school and, and it's, it sort of felt like the same sort of task so that was right around the age that i realized that i was bad at homework i had been good at school right up until then once they once i once they got to the homework that you couldn't do while they were passing out the homework to the other kids. That's when things went south for me. Well, we've solved that. Let's get back. Let's get back to saps. To the saps. Yeah, because you're right. The pain relief is a very obvious use for this for them. But mer then and now was a really famous way to preserve

dead bodies. And apparently it's also continued to be for hundreds of years. The American Chemical Society says that in 1805 AD, so about 200 years ago, the British Admiral Horatio Nelson is killed at the Battle of Trafalgar. Then they win the battle, but his sailors, in order to bring his body back for burial, they put it in a cask of brandy infused with myrrh. So somebody on the boat already had myrrh, and then they used it to preserve a body many, many centuries after Bible times. Still going on.

100% thought you were going to say somebody in the boat was already in the cask of brandy. Alcohol is still also really prominent in these stories but uh but that was part of the deal was like we can use this to save a body like people did in ancient egypt great and uh and those kings did have myrrh but you can get it today too so i got a case of it i just got a costco just made a costco run it's probably more than i need but it keeps well why why do i feel trusting of a kirkland brand murr like i know why but they don't make it it's not real because it's a premium brand at an affordable price you know it's the good stuff so if you you know you're ready if the sea captain dies You know, you're ready if the sea captain dies.

Or the son of God is born. Yeah, right. If someone dies or you need pain relief or you need a kind of bitter, funky incense or perfume or the Messiah is here. It turns out myrrh has a lot of uses. I can see why it got stacked up with gold. Like it was pretty valuable. I'm working hard not to blaspheme on this program. I think I've done it so far. I have nothing but respect for Jesus Christ, the Son of our Lord.

Oh, yeah. We have no choice but to stand this sin-absolving legend. legend. Well, this is one of the reasons I'm so excited about this topic is it is just a comprehensively not understood thing within that larger story of this person. Like the person is why it's known. And then the thing is a mystery to like everybody, including me before researching this. I didn't know anything about it. And I mean, it's not just not understood.

It's also almost universally known. Like if you think of what I don't like, despite the fact that I went to church intermittently my entire childhood and worked at a church for like two or three years, I don't really know that much about Jesus other than him being a good guy, uh, and, and dying for our sins, being resurrected. Like I know the, the broad outlines and I've seen life of Brian quite a number of times, but, um, but like, yeah, one of the things that I know about him is gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Like, I don't know where the three kings or the magi came from, for example. I think they came from somewhere. I think it says in the Bible, maybe, but I don't know. We will actually talk about that in a little bit. Because, yeah, I did a lot of like pulling up the gospels on my computer for researching this oh great and it's it's a pretty brief section of the ones that bothered to talk about it yeah alex what are your top three gospels uh for our purposes yeah counting down the metal stand and then one one epistle is just standing there at the side like the sticks.

I got nothing. Oh, I wrote all those letters. Yeah. What's number three? Top three gospels. Any criteria you choose. Number three. I'm going to do for today's purposes.

Number three. I'm going to do for today's purposes. And I'm going to say Mark is number three and Luke is number two and Matthew is number one. Yeah. Same with me. Mark number three, Luke number two. Number one for me got to be The Tao of Steve. Love that movie.

Love that. Donald Logue. Great and everything. Another important text enters the chat, folks. Uh-huh. Off of that, we are going to a short break, followed by a whole new takeaway. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife.

I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience,

one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Okay, so what else do we know about Murr? Yeah. Let's learn some more. So there's one other big takeaway in the show, but we're going to set it up with a section of stats and numbers. And every week on the show, this segment has a new name. This week, this segment is called...

It ain't my fault that I'm out here spouting facts. Gotta blame it on the stats, cause the stats are where it's at, baby. It ain't my fault that you think that it's a spoof. Cause the numbers are the proof. Here's the stats I'm gonna use. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like your combination of committing to that and not committing to that.

Thank you. It was a real mix. There was a moment where you hit the high note and really had your heart in it and there was that fade out at the end where you realized what you had done i do i do find with these that if there's a primarily instrumental component i really fall apart because i don't know how long to do it. There's no transition. But that name was submitted by Dane Thompson. Thank you, Dane. We have a new name for this every week. Please make him as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to Sifpod on Twitter or to Sifpod at gmail.com. And the set of numbers this week is Bible heavy

because it turns out the myrrh part of the Bible is incredibly specific and only in some of the Gospels, and where we get it is even sort of surprising. But the first number is the thing I did know going in. It is four. That is the number of canonical Gospels in most Christian traditions. Each Gospel is a written account of the life, death, resurrection of Jesus events around it. And they're named after their authors. Their authors are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

You know who I really came to like recently? Ringo. I feel like he's a real pro. He shows up on time. I don't know if you saw the documentary. I haven't watched it yet, actually. George has that great coat, but Ringo really, really shines shines he just seems so great the more you learn seems like a great guy yeah this seems like a genuinely like that's why no one is mad at him from the beatles

like he's not that great at being in the beatles he's fine he's good you know but it's just like yeah ringo's a nice guy he's a good guy That's what everyone seems to think. I think when I was really little, initially I thought, oh, Ringo helps because he's like not taking the spotlight so much. He's not like grabbing it from the others. And then I think I've more come to realize he helped by just not being a jerk more than the others. Like it was just a necessary interpersonal situation. Yeah. He seems to be as sincerely nice a guy as Paul has spent his entire life working hard to be perceived as. Paul doesn't seem like a bad guy. I don't want to be clear about that. It seems fine. But yeah, I agree. But yeah, so another for some Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And then the next number here is two, because two is the number of Gospels that tell the story of the Nativity.

Do the other ones just leave it out? Yeah. Or do they have a different, or do they got a different line on it? And if people don't know, the Gospels, like, they all tell the same general story, but they focus on different stuff, and then there are also differences in some of the details. And I, despite going to two churches growing up, and usually two Christmas services, like Christmas Eve, Presbyterian Christmas Day Mass, you know, I did not realize that two of the Gospels skip the Christmas story. They do not bother telling it, and we get the whole thing from just the other two. Matthew is just like, happy holidays.

Yeah, we get descriptions of the Nativity in the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Luke. But the Gospel of Mark, the beginning of it is the prophecy that a Messiah is coming, and then it just jumps straight to Jesus as an adult being baptized. All four of these agree on a virgin birth, but Mark just does not describe the event at all. And then same with the Gospel of John, he begins with the beginning of the entire universe and then jumps to John the Baptist as an adult telling people a story that, no, I am not the Messiah, but the Messiah is among us right now and we'll meet him really soon. And then adult Jesus we meet. So two of them, there's no baby Jesus in it. They just don't bother focusing on that.

That's wild. I had no idea. I mean, it seems so important, right? I guess it just seems important because we're cold at that time of year. Oh, Northern hemisphere is cold. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We're just like, Ooh, God, what could we do? Cold. Maybe everyone knows this in Australia. Fresh crops in a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's just like we've made that holiday so central that you would think it's wall to wall in the Bible, but it's briefly described in only half of the Gospels. And the others are like, that's not interesting.

Let's move on. I'm sure he was born. Great. Early Christians celebrated primarily Jesus's 21st birthday. The first time he got super hammered right because they had been drinking wine since they were babies it's just for some reason year 21 you get super hammered yeah somebody's holding back Jesus's hair.

But the next number here, getting even smaller, is one. One is the number of Gospels with a nativity story where wise men bring gifts to Jesus. The entire gold frankincense myrrh thing is only in the Gospel of Matthew specifically. That's where we're getting this entire thing. The gospel of Luke that bothers to tell the nativity story does not include it. It's not part of the thing. The idea of the gospels is that all of these dudes got their story from Big J, but then when he died for all of our sins,, it's their job to to spread the word, right? Yeah, more or less. And they because they were written some years after his life, but it kind of varies. And some of them were pretty close to it. I never really questioned it as a kid in church. Like, why can't there just be one telling of this? But the attempt seems to have been, let's put the four together to get the best, most accurate telling we can.

Did they have an acrimonious relationship? Like they couldn't get in a room? Yeah. Well, now I'm imagining one of them being George Harrison and putting out like a double gospel of their own stuff afterward. I mean, it's good. Like, why haven't we been doing this? Yeah. And then whichever one is Ringo is just like, I'm into all of it, man. I'm into all of it. Sure.

Yeah. All the ideas. Yeah. Going to tour with Billy Preston or whatever. And yeah. And so the Gospel of Matthew chapter two two he describes these people as quote magi from the east and is not specific about what country they're from it's just a country in the east we don't know where and uh he says that they follow a star to judea because the star signals the birth

of the king of the jews and is also pointing them to it. And then they find Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, bow down, worship them, and then, quote, they open their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, end quote. So that's very directly in the Bible. It's just only in this one gospel, this one time. The other guys don't talk about it. Do they all come together? I thought it was they had three traveling parties, each of whom had one of the things. Yeah, if I'm reading this translation of it right, they all come together. And we'll also get more into the

details of them being surprising, too. I think we learned recently that the Beatles all came together, too, when they were young men. Paul told that story. TMI, am I right? I also, I remember being, I think I was in high school, but I was, you know, pretty impressionable. And I was like, I can't wait to read this book about the Beatles and their time in Hamburg, Germany. And then it was nuts. It was a lot of sex and drugs

and stuff I had not heard about before i mean can you imagine what it was like to be the beatles in germany yeah soon you will be the greatest band of all time but right now you're just like four dudes who don't speak the language covering Chuck Berry songs. Yeah. What a weird origin story. Right. And it's your first time away from home.

Like, you're having the American college kid feelings, too. You know, like, it's a lot. Like you're having the American college kid feelings too, you know, like it's a lot. But yeah, so the Gospel of Matthew is the only place we get gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Also, the Gospel of Luke is the only place we get a bunch of the other nativity stuff. It describes the family having to stay in a manger because the inn is full. It's the only one with an angel coming to shepherds. is full. It's the only one with an angel coming to shepherds. The whole like nativity scene picture and like figurines on a lawn that comes from a combo of these two gospels kind of spliced together. Which one has Rudolph? And which one just has the regular reindeer?

Those are the whole books, Acts of the Reindeer and the Letters of Rudolph to the Corinthians. Rudolph is only in the Apocrypha. The red nose is a little much. What if all the lyrics of the song are about like the Dead Sea Scrolls and Aramaic and stuff? Like it's really hard to follow. They're the inspiration for the Da Vinci Code. Yeah. A couple more numbers here.

The next one is, again, the number one. This number one is the number of Gospels that describe Myrrh at the end of Jesus's life. And I did not know or remember this either. But this is a whole amazing separate thing that in the Gospel of Mark, which skips the nativity, doesn't bother describing it. Near the end of it, Jesus is crucified in chapter 15, verse 24. And then the previous verse, the previous sentence, like the last thing before he is crucified is, quote, Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it, end quote. So there is a... It's like when Donald Trump refused anesthesia for his colonoscopy.

Is it? Because he didn't. Jesus just didn't want Pence to be temporarily president. didn't want Pence to be temporarily president. That would be so heartbreaking to Mike Pence if he learned that. It's his worst nightmare. Yeah, it's a instance of murder that I think I had never heard of, even though, again, I read the Bible front to back one time, and it just didn't stick in my head. But that was before we had Control-F. Oh. So it's understandable. But yeah, in this one telling of the crucifixion, Jesus is offered the pain-reliever version of

myrrh with some wine. And then also some theologians believe this is like a very significant moment because it's an instance of Jesus refusing to have any relief as he does this sacrifice. And so it's actually very theologically meaningful. And maybe kind of more important than the myrrh that's a baby gift. That's just sort of whatever compared to that. Yeah. Whole thing. important than the murder that's a baby gift like that's that's just sort of whatever compared to that yeah whole thing i mean baby gift wise like i mean just diapers right like that's what you just need you'll use as many diapers as people give you you'll that's a great idea so you just give one of those you know sometimes they make stuff out of diapers, like a big display out of diapers and everybody brings, that's just, that's what you need. You just need diapers.

Like a display, like, like when a grocery store has them all stacked up and it's kind of cool. Well, have you, you haven't ever, you haven't ever said, well, maybe you, maybe you haven't been to, uh, enough grand baby showers, but often in a baby shower where there's crafters involved they will make they will like origami diapers into a display can you still use them after or no oh yeah i use them all the time right you're wearing them right now yeah yeah this is just good tip folks get people diapers yeah they need it the last number here brings us into the one other takeaway and rounds off the main episode this last number is three because it turns out three is not necessarily the number of the magi the wise men because that brings us into takeaway number two.

Myrrh helped create the non-biblical concept of the quote unquote three wise men. There are magi in the Bible. They do bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Jesus. But from there, Christians have made a bunch of leaps about how many people they are and what they're like and a bunch of other things about them. people they are and what they're like and a bunch of other things about them. It's not in the text. So you're saying in the actual Bible, in the text, it just says that some came. Some magi came. But it lists what gifts they brought and all of Christendom since then in their front lawn displays has just assumed one wise man per gift. Exactly right. Yes.

That's wild. It could have been 14 wise men. Yep. Any number. They just all happened to bring the same one of the three things. They had all agreed. We're all bringing one of these. Right. of the three thing they had all agreed we're all bringing one of these right and they maybe they just did set it up like some people bring appetizers some people bring mains some people

bring sides yeah they could have just had a sign up there's 43 of them this is from all of us yeah yeah it's all just basically gifting logic and also that artists like to draw it that way like it's just how many sheep did they have though two right two sheep it says in the bible there's two sheep this is like look no one needs to read the bible but if people want to read this story in the Gospel of Matthew, it takes you like one second. It's very, very, very, very brief. And there's very little details about these people. And our key sources here are the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, that has a bunch of amazing online resources about this. And then also something from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Because in the Bible, the most accurate term for these guys is the Magi, but it's not clear there's three of them. They are not called wise men. They are never called kings. And I like how the National Gallery of Art puts it, quote, as Gentiles who acknowledged Christ's divinity, the Magi claim an essential role in the epiphany, the manifestation of God to the world. Yet Matthew's brief description of the episode provides so few details about them that biblical scholars have had to speculate on their number and appearance and origins, end quote. Most of this stuff is just stuff people decided later because they felt like it would make sense imagine if early christians or like whatever it was yeah victorian illustrators whoever it was that decided how we imagine these kings coming hadn't decided that we wouldn't have zZ Top today. Jesse, as a sharply dressed man, is that a particularly acute concern for you? Is that difficult? You know, I interviewed one of the ZZ Tops, the main ZZ Top, And he was so great. He was such a lovely man.

Just like a really, I would say the two most pleasant rock stars I've ever talked to are the guy from ZZ Top. Okay. And the guy from Judas Priest. Now I'm blaspheming. But the guy from Judas Priest. Now I'm blaspheming. But the guy from Judas Priest. What a joy that guy is. He's so nice. And, I mean, think of, I mean, he only came out, like, in the 90s or something.

But, like, think of how romantic, let's say, the 70s and 80s were for him. Just like going out on stage in that outfit, coming back to the dressing room. I mean, can you imagine what he got up to? Holy mackerel. Because he came out, he's gay? Yeah, yeah, he's out, he's gay. He's been out for quite a while. He wasn't at the time, but it wasn't like he wasn't so deep in the closet

that his bandmates and stuff didn't know. So 100% he could send people to, to bring him the, the hottest guys in the audience. Good for him, man. But I mean, just, can you imagine in 1978, like forget about being a village person. You're the front man of Judas Priest. How much romance is in your life? Keeping it clean here. Right.

You're not competing with the other four village people and you have that edge and like, boy, oh boy. Exactly. You got the outfit on already. He's so nice. He's such a lovely man. You just would want to hang out with him and have lunch. Just both of those guys. Just delightful delightful guys they're so delightful uh yeah but yeah uh i find it very exciting that the bible has been so unspecific about these guys this whole time that i had no

idea yeah well it is like almost all of Christianity is culturally constructed. I think we can acknowledge there's a lot of interpolation going on. Yeah, because this is like that three wise men idea or three kings idea is, you know, older than Santa. But the National Gallery of Art says it came about in the European Middle Ages. And like you, like you supposed, it's because people said the Bible is very specific about three gifts, gold, frankincense, myrrh. It must mean it was three guys. Like, cause it's also specific about just three gifts. They didn't say and more stuff or et cetera type language, you know? And from there, there were also more leaps

by European Christians. National Gallery again, quote, from a wide assortment of names suggested for the Magi, those that eventually prevailed were Gaspar or Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, end quote. Also, according to Paul William Roberts, the first written English account of them was in the 800s AD. And the guy who wrote it is named the Venerable Bead. And he spent a bunch of time describing their beard length specifically, and also giving them names and also specifying that the Magi Balthazar was black skinned. He was like, also one of them's black. Ironically, the wise man whose name was Melchior Beard was the only one who didn't have a beard. That's ZZ Top humor for you, Alex.

It's the one thing people are always telling you is that Frank Beard from ZZ Top was the one who didn't have a beard. Oh. Everyone tells you that about ZZ Top. I mean, he's asking for that joke a bit right like at some point grow 100 you know and you know what they're they're obviously chill fun guys who think that's fun yeah right god bless them for it they love it did you know there was a guy who played for the san francisco giants who i think was probably named melchior? No, never heard of him. Because how would you get his, he was named Melky, but how would you get to Melky if your name wasn't Melchior, right?

Oh, Melky Cabrera? He was on the White Sox too. Yeah. The White Sox man. The Milkman. Yeah, yeah. The Milkman, Melky Cabrera. That's all. Yeah.

Just fun Melchior's from history. I actually don know what melchior's long for with him yeah i just top three top three melchior's alex let's go well i have to um yeah control f control f control f yeah yeah there's a because there's another thing i've noticed that a lot of times in these displays they make one of the three kings black and it's it seems specific to do just one and always one and it's because some european christians started deciding that not only were there three magi, but also they symbolized the three medievally known continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and possibly even came in three groups from those different places. And so that's why artists started drawing one of them as black, because they associate that with Africa.

And then they would do like kind of a Persian looking guy and a European looking guy. That's wild. Our minds love latching on to groups of characters. I think that's part of why you would think with this Bible unspecificity, people would get like fun and creative almost with the Kings more, but they really just stick to three guys.

Yeah, Alvin, Simon, Theodore. Yeah. And after the singing, Theodore. Yeah. And after the singing, the family's like, I need a pain reliever. Boy, oh boy. Yeah. It's too much. It's too high. Yeah. It's high sounding. And the one other key thing about these guys is, again, they're described as magi in the Bible. keep thinking about these guys is, again, they're described as magi in the Bible. And so the king's description they get often is also just kind of invented after that. My sources say that the word magi as used in the gospel probably means something like an astronomer, or it's describing a Persian job at the time that was sort of a combo between a priest and a doctor.

And the, the astronomer part fits following a star and the doctor priest part fits the frankincense and the myrrh and like knowing how to use those. But artists just kind of decided that like, it's exciting if Jesus outranks Kings and they're fun to draw. And it just kind of gives more verve to the whole scene. If we make them Kings of things instead of scientists and doctors. There's a lot less zip if you think of Jesus as king of astronomers. Yeah.

King of kings is better. Yeah. And also the final, final push here is that in 1857, an American Episcopal clergyman named John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote the Christmas carol called We Three Kings of Orient Are. That's a jam. And that big hit basically cemented all this in American minds going forward. Yeah, song's a jam. That's undeniable. Yeah.

We three kings of Orient Are. Yeah. Yeah, it's got some nice minor stuff going on. Yeah. We three kings of Orient Park. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's got some nice minor stuff going on. Yeah. It's real cool. But yeah.

So secretly this whole time, we've just been kind of getting creative on all the window dressing of the story. And I find that fascinating. I think it's cool. Yeah. And then they later did the same thing with the Burger King Kids Club. At least with that, they went past three characters, right? when they decided that there were only three kings, three wise men, three magi, that wheels got left out. Wheels with a Z from the Burger King Kids Club.

I don't know why I think about the Burger King Kids Club so much. Definitely spent more time with the Burger King Kids Club than the Bible. So if you want to talk about IQ, I can do that. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Jesse Thorne for making the time, for bringing in his Episcopalian roots, for making very, very, very good jokes about Billy Bean of the Oakland A's. We got everything I could ever dream for this. Just great. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now.

If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the clothing store for popes. Yeah, popes have a go-to clothing store in the world. That's just a thing going on. Visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than six dozen other bonus shows. Wow. And to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring mer with us.

Here is one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, myrrh is a secretion from a tree with a bunch of useful properties that have been known for thousands of years. Takeaway number two, myrrh helped spark the non-biblical concept of the quote-unquote three wise men, also known as three kings. Plus a humongous deep dive into the Gospels and their differences and their strangenesses and also the incredibly particular and specific ways Murr is part of that text. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guest. He's great. Jesse Thorne is the host and producer and maker of many, many amazing podcasts. I'll have links to those many shows Jesse Thorne

does. And then also I want to make sure you go to MaximumFun.org. You've probably already heard podcasts that come from that network. And if you haven't, I really, really, really hope you will. Maximum Fun is comedy and culture. It does what its name says. It provides the maximum amount of fun. Also, Maximum Fun's shows are owned by the artists and then supported by the audiences. And that is a model that many of us have proceeded to do after they did it. And I think their pioneering of that and their making that a thing has been really substantially important to basically everything I like about podcasting and has really made it a thing and a joy. So I really, really hope you support the thing that did it and is still doing it and has just a ton of great shows you're going to really like. And there's benefits for doing it to MaximumFun.org that is founded and run by my wonderful guest today, Jesse Thorne. are some key ones. A great article in Time Magazine interviewing Kristen Swenson, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Go Rams! A great book titled Journey of the Magi by writer Paul William Roberts, an online museum exhibit from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., lots of other art and chemistry sources as well. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Many special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show.

And thank you to all our listeners. I also have a programming note for you, because next week will be the Monday between Christmas and New Year's. It's going to be the first Monday there has ever not been a new episode of this show in the main public feed. Also, great news, there was a special live stream episode of this podcast, the first ever live episode, that happened this past weekend for people on the Patreon. I made a recording of that live show, and it is going up on the Patreon a little bit later this week. If you feel like a holiday message is insufficient show next week, you can go ahead and watch that live show instead. I think that's a cool thing. So the public feed for this show will have a full new episode in two weeks.

Next week, there will be a holiday message. And then if you're not a patron yet, you can see that entire live show that we did and also enjoy, like I said, more than six dozen bonus shows that are all waiting for you in a neatly tagged list on the Patreon. So I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week, and in full the following week, and also in full and in bonus ways and in a bunch of ways on the Patreon right now with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.