¶ Intro / Opening
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¶ Two Kingdoms and Herod's Shadow
This is the Bamob Podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host Brent Billings. Today we finish our look at the story of the birth of Jesus, juxtaposing two kings and the kingdoms that they bring.
Yeah. Herod in our last story, but we were busy looking at Magi and the first time. Astrology and astronomy and All of that, so we really didn't have time. I wanted to stop us, but we had been stopped enough already. But Matthew's writing along and all of a sudden he talks about Herod the Great. And uh I wanna do some work today to try to appreciate that line'cause I think we just read over it like, Oh yeah, Herod, he's the king, he's the one that killed all the babies, blah blah blah blah blah.
There's all kinds of historical context behind when Matthew says in the days of Herod the Great, or well look at Luke, and Luke's gonna say in the days of Caesar Augustus. That sentence uh carries so much historical context and weight to it that I want to go ahead and take a look at that. But got some notes I'll read today. Keep me tied to my objectives. How about that? See if we can get out of here under forty five minutes this time.
Uh back in the beginning of our study, all the way back in session one, Brent, we talked about what do we call the narrative. What do we call it?
A tale of two kingdoms?
Tale of two kingdoms, which two kingdoms back in session one.
Empire and Shalom.
Empire and Shalom, I feel like we spent a pretty good amount of time in session one, and I feel like we really spent a lot of time in session two juxtaposing these two kingdoms.
talking a a at length about the dangers of empire and the invitation of shalom. And and just empire and shalom, empire and shalom. Which narrative is this? Which narrative is this? All those kind of things. Um whether it was their time in the desert uh learning how to uh lead with their voice and um following God's voice, uh whether it was learning how not to use the stick, whether it was uh the tension of living in Schvelah, uh the challenge of living with abundance,
Uh in session two as they built their own like physical empire, uh we kept seeing an agenda of juxtaposing in the scriptures uh what we call empire and what God will call shalom. Empire and Peace. This narrative makes a prominent appearance in the very beginning of the gospel records as well. There are two birth narratives, direct at least direct birth narratives, one in Matthew, one in Luke. I say that because I always like to say that John has a birth narrative, it just looks different.
But two direct birth narratives, one in Matthew and uh and one in Luke. And both of them set the stage for the life of Jesus. uh in a world of contrast. They do something they utilize the same tool to do something very, very similar from two slightly different perspectives. And uh and of course Matthew is gonna focus on Herod because Herod was in a practical sense, not a literal sense, but in a
in like an economic, a sociopolitical economic sense, Herod was the king of the Jews. That was Herod the Great. And so we said that Matthew's writing to a what kind of an audience?
Uh Jews,
Jewish audience, and so Matthew pulls on his context, Jewish context, and he's going to juxtapose Jesus' kingdom with the kingdom of Herod the Great. Um so how about uh let's see here, the Gospel of Matthew draws out a deep background of the rule of Herod the Great. It showcases how paranoid Herod was that a future ruler would even pose a threat to his kingdom.
Um I don't remember. I don't think we've talked much about Herod in session three yet, have we? Is this kind of our introduction to Herod?
Uh I think we maybe briefly mentioned him when we were going through like the timeline of everything but
Yeah. Herod Herod being one of the wealthiest guys who's ever lived. Well, if history's correct at all, if if history is even remotely correct, um Herod's the richest man to ever walk the face of the planet Earth. Um Uh also one of the most paranoid men to probably ever walk the face of the planet. Um crazy wealthy and just crazy as well. Uh very, very paranoid individual. But let's actually go ahead and finish off our uh finish off we're gonna look at the rest of chapter two in the Gospel of
Matthew today. So go ahead and read us that passage so we have some scriptural context to what we're talking about.
When they had gone, uh that being the Magi, when they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt.
where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, Out of Egypt I called my son, When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity, who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the magi.
Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. A voice is heard in Rama, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said, Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead.
So he got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Arch Archelaus, Archelaus Archelaus. Uh was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets that he would be called a Nazarene.
There you go. And again, more references to more Old Testament prophets, and if we're gonna listen to a Jewish author speak to a Jewish audience. We need to go back to those references about Rachel weeping uh in Ramah and those voices that are being heard. We need we need to go back and and look at those prophecies and say, what is the context of that reference? have to add as far as commentary and color to the story that Matthew is telling. So it's in the text.
I gotta say. Joseph has a whole lot of dreams.
He does.
Like my goodness. Here here comes that here's Joseph. Here comes that dreamer. Exactly. Just like the other Joseph.
Yes, and where does he come out of in the story of Matthew? Out of Egypt. Out of Egypt. Like there is without a doubt. Uh obviously Matthew trying to point out this parallel and he's gonna be working with that a little bit with his Jewish audience. In fact, he's gonna want to show Jesus almost as a new Israel. He's trying to connect Jesus as this to his Jewish audience
This Jesus has connected with us in our story. He's walking our story for us. He's putting Torah on display. He's uh a very, very good observation. Absolutely. All right. So um
¶ Herod the Great: Wealth, Power, Paranoia
Uh, depending on how reliable we find our historical sources, uh extra-biblical as well as biblical, uh, Herod was the richest man to ever walk the face of the planet. If history is correct, we have Uh wouldn't even be a close second. Bill Gates would mow Herod's lawn. One of my teachers taught me that Herod's income uh came in at well over a hundred times the national GDP of his country. Now, I'm no economist. I don't know how the math works on that. I don't know
Uh, don't ask me to try to explain that. I'm quoting what was taught to me, but just imagine for a second, Brent, if even a fraction of that is true. If Herod uh personal kingdom. His his personal economy that he ran grossed a hundred times the national GDP of his region. Remember he was the son of who Brent Where did all this wealth come from?
Uh the the spice traders from Midjumea.
Antipater. Okay. Antipater. Antipater, however you like to pronounce that, wherever you put the emphasis on the syllable. Um that is that is his dad from Igemea Nabataea, and he inherited what what what did what did they run, Brent?
This vice too.
The spice trade. So he inherited this massive, massive business. Um and brought all this wealth into so it's not just the wealth of it it's b incredibly possible he had a hundred times the GDP because it's all coming from that international spice trade, not just the region of Palestine that he rules in.
Uh in Israel, everywhere you go you can see the impact that Herod had on the world. Brent, you came with me and really I'm gonna try to do this in a podcast, but really the only way to see this and learn this. I mean you can speak to this, but you you need to come with me over to Israel.
The scale is difficult to comprehend without standing there.
Yeah, and to to see some of the things that you get to see to t to to travel to Avdot and talk about Herod's beginnings and to do some of the stuff. But y you went to Israel um Tell me about like the the opulence that you saw. Uh compare Herod to s anything else. Like, Tell me what your experience was.
Like everything that Herod does is bigger, better, fancier. Shinier.
And like a little a little bigger. Um
A lot.
Yeah.
It is incredible.
Yeah.
The the stones that he um built the Temple Mount out of.
Yes.
are so massive
Yes.
In the show notes. But but I'll put a picture in there and I've got a I've got a guy from the trip. Not a short guy.
No.
They're they're incredible.
Yeah. And and this and the picture that you'll have isn't even of the largest one. The large one of the largest uh um Oh man, why did I just lose the word that they use um for those stones? Anyway, one of the largest stones that they have is actually in a place called the Rabbi Tunnels, which we didn't get to go. I've stood there and put my hands on the stone. Two hundred and sixty metric tons.
That's Stoneway.
Uh like we we literally could not get the cranes into Jerusalem today to move this we don't have the technology to move the stones. Like so many things that Herod did, he didn't write down because he wanted history to know him as As just pure greatness. So as engineers weren't allowed to record how they did anything,'cause they would do that at the cost of their life. So we don't know today so many of the things that Herod accomplished.
um how he moved the stones that we have theories of how he must have moved the stones of the temple, quarried about four, three to four miles away. Um in a stone quarry outside of Jerusalem? That's a that's a long way to pack a stone that weighs two hundred and sixty metric tons. Um and we think he did it with rollers?
That's our best option. Um, how did they grow wine at Ovda? We have no idea how they did that. We we don't even have a good theory right now of how they did that. Uh that was where um the Nabataeans the Nabataeans and Ijemeans were were one of their compounds, one of their uh cities that they had built was from. Um let's see, what else uh Herod uh Masada. So, are you talking about Masada?
It's out in the middle of the desert, it's this sprawling palace. And I think we don't even know that he was ever there, right?
We don't have uh scholars are now saying that he must have been there. We don't have a reference to him ever being there. We just don't know how much. But scholars are now saying it seems to be that he would have been there.
Crazy that he wouldn't have ever gone there. Right. But it's it's not like his primary residence or anything.
He built these three palaces to get away. Uh he was so paranoid that people would try to kill him that he had this getaway plan with three palaces that would take him about six to eight days and he could be all the way back in Ijmea Nabatea. And and out of the country.
So, massive palace, uh built on this little terraced rock thing way up above the desert. Uh have to get to it by uh by like a ramp or whatever. Or no, did they built the ramp? How did that work?
Uh well they no, the ramp was built by the zealots when they overtook Masada.
Okay. So how did you how did you get to it before the
The only way up the Masada was this pathetic and th they might have had some other systems that we don't know about, y you know, whatever, whether it's other kinds of pulley systems to take other things up.
As far as getting up the mountain, you got up on the snake trail. Yeah, there's a trail that just snakes up, switchbacks up this mountain. You'll throw a picture of Masada up there. Yep. As well, so people can appreciate that. Um some twenty one seventeen to twenty one cisterns, I believe. Uh Uh I think of the seventeen largest cisterns of the world that we've ever found, twelve of them are on Masada, if I remember that stat correctly.
Um some ridiculous millions and millions and millions and millions of gallons of water are be able to be stored in Masada, largest system in the world
World all of the greatest luxuries of Hellenism.
Absolutely.
Just right here out in the middle of the desert on top of this mountain. Yep. Uh to be used occasionally by Herod. Right.
One of Herod's favorite palaces, the Herodium, we'll throw a picture of the Herodium in your presentation, at least one, or maybe a a few pictures of the Herodium. Um, Herod wanted to build a palace on a mountain, but there wasn't a mountain. So Herod just built a mountain.
He just built a mountain. That's what you do. Yeah. That's uh that's what Herod does. Like Herod is uh I I want something, I just do it,'cause money's not an issue. I just pay people to do whatever so he literally built a mountain. uh to build his and we've got it we'll show you a picture of that. He built a palace, he built a mountain, and then built a palace on and into a mountain. So th th this is Herod, and we're just giving you a flyby. Just skipping a stone across the cliff notes of
who Herod is here, but Herod was the richest man to let's see here. Definitely the richest man to walk the planet. Herod desired to be the greatest man who ever lived. Um history knows him as Herod the
Great.
Herod the Great My teacher Ray always called him Herod the Wicked, couldn't stand that history sees him as greatness,'cause it's just Hellenistic great. But hey...
Is he greater than Alexander the Great? Mm.
But they're yeah, we're gonna have to put'em in the same category, right? Depends on how we're measuring. Depends on how we're measuring. But Herod the Great wanted to be the greatest man who ever lived. He took the p this pursuit seriously and did everything so wildly over the top that to this day we are not sure how and he how he and his architects did some of the things he did at that point in history.
¶ Jesus' Humble Birth: A Subversive Contrast
Um yet the king of the universe. Wraps himself in flesh and is born in a stable in Bethlehem. Which isn't just backwater town of Joseph and his family. Bethlehem also happens to be the location for one of Herod's three great palaces. Guess which one it is?
The Herodium. The Herodium.
And so uh one of the phrases that Ray used to always use was uh in fact he even had a video called In the Shadow of the Herodium, little Christmas special. 'Cause Jesus is born almost literally in the shadow of the Herodium. And it it's in the gospel you have these two kingdoms juxtaposed. You have Herod the Great on a Hellenistic level, one of the greatest men to ever live.
on one hand. And then on the other hand you have God, the creator of the universe, who doesn't choose to be born in a p like, how does God choose to engage the greatest Hellenistic man that the world maybe has ever seen or however you want to talk about that, how does God going to answer Herod?
Like you would imagine with his own palace, with his own kingdom, but he doesn't. He goes right underneath Herod's nose. He's born to a poor peasant family, struggling with rejection, pushed out to the stable, and he's born in the sheep dew like That's the juxtaposition of the Christmas story. You can have all the and and what drives me crazy is our American Christmas songs that we sing, the silver and gold and
and Jack Frost nipping at your nose and and I'm not even gonna touch the Santa thing. Just the Christmas song. It's all about wealth and comfort and that's Herod. It's the wrong kingdom. Our Christmas is tied up in the wrong kingdom, because when God came he wrapped himself in flesh, and he was born in a sheep stall.
To steal a phrase from my teacher, uh Ray, the subversive nature of God's plan is that He will send His Son to be born in the shadow of the palace of the greatest man to walk on Roman soil. There are two kingdoms that are being put on display in Matthew's gospel. One king is the richest man to ever live. He constructs incredible buildings that stagger the mind and accomplishes incredible feats of human engineering.
His ingenuity and wealth are second to none. He builds mountains where there aren't any pipes in water to places that could never previously be reached. and corners the market on beauty and innovation. He is the most powerful human being the world has ever seen. His life is decorated with silver, gold, and the richest of fare. And another king is born to a poverty stricken, rejected family from the rural town of Nazareth. He is born in sheep crabs.
Surrounded by the ash of shepherds' fires, and the feces of cattle, his birth is announced to the marginalized of society, and his advent is celebrated by shepherds. One king is the leader of empire, the other is the king of shalom.
¶ Caesar Augustus: The False Gospel of Empire
And we could do the same thing, by the way, Brent, before we're done here with Luke's gospel, because Luke will do the same he'll employ the same tool. You have uh you have the opening chapter to the or the opening verse to the second chapter of Luke, don't you?
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
That's right. In those five words Luke says more than we probably realize. These words are chosen deliberately by Luke. Luke is trying to set his own stage for his own narrative about the tale of two kingdoms. His version of the Christmas story puts us in the juxtaposition between two other kings. This king thought himself to be God incarnate, the son of an ascended Julius Caesar Augustus.
Claimed or excuse me, the son of an ascended Julius Caesar, Augustus claimed that a mighty star in the sky, apparently seen by many, I believe it's called Caesar's Comet. I think it's on Wikipedia. If you can find an article, you can link it to the show notes, Brent.
It was known today as Caesar's comet. He said this was Octavian at the time, he wasn't known as Augustus at that moment. There was a battle for the throne between Mark Antony after the assassination of Julius Caesar. There's a battle for the throne between Mark Antony and Octavian. Mark Antony has all the practical reason to be ruler. Octavian is Julius's adopted nephew, who, because of his adoption, is Julius's legal son.
And there's a battle for the throne. Mark Anthony has all the power, but Octavian has all the political wit. Because of that, Octavian seizes on this again, we got astrology at work here. This unbelievable star, uh Caesar's comet that apparently was seen by almost everybody in the Empire was common news.
Almost everybody had seen it, and because of that Octavian seizes on this opportunity. And he says that that comet was actually his father Julius, Julius Caesar, ascending to his rightful throne as God. If Julius was God, then that would make me, Augustus says, Octavian said, the son of God.
From this point in Roman history, emperors would and without exception claim incarnate deity among their many attributes. They did not do that very heavily in Rome, by the way. It wasn't a very popular position to do in Rome. Rome saw their position as very human. They didn't want to connect it with deity. But especially throughout the world of Asia and Asia Minor, as well as other areas of what we would call Greece, uh deity worship, emperor worship as deity was very, very common.
And almost almost every emperor had it. It was just the the most effective way to Do your PR and the So Augustus ended up being exclaimed by Roman propaganda and you might remember Brent, it was just uh uh a few podcasts ago and we talked about gospel narrative. We actually read a plaque from Prienx. Which announced a gospel of Caesar Augustus, this very same Caesar.
Um and so i it's it's propaganda like that that claimed that Augustus was and we have this on currency, we have this on other pieces of literature, uh uh uh other stuff that we've found. Those kind of things, uh different references to Augustus as the son of the most high, the eternal prince of peace. The King of Kings.
The Lord of Lords, these were uh references that were used by Caesar Augustus. It was often proclaimed that there was no other name under heaven which a man could be saved from terror except that of Caesar Augustus. And yet in a stable is born a baby, who Luke claims to be the true King of Kings, the true Lord of Lords, the true Prince of Peace, and the Son of the Most High God.
¶ Choosing Between Empire and Shalom
One king plays the part well, the other king challenges everything we expect of the ruler of the universe. It's a tale of two kingdoms, and we are being invited in the gospel to consider our deepest assumptions about the world. What is real power? What is real wealth? Where does security come from? Who is God? What is God trying to save me from? What do I really want and what do I strive for? Empire or shalom?
Would I even have noticed the king of the universe? Born in a stable or would I simply have been looking for a better Caesar or And I don't like that question'cause it's super, super convicting. Uh I don't think I would have seen Jesus for who he was. I think I would have been looking for a more powerful ruler, a better president, a more effective politician. Uh
We have a tendency to look for Caesars. We have a tendency to look for kings. We don't have a tendency to look for gods born in sheep stables. that have come to announce and and and we just haven't moved on on some level. In in one way we've moved on a bunch. But in another way we haven't moved on from where we started. This is still the same narrative. A tale of two kingdoms.
Uh do I have a narrative that's driven by fear? Do I have a narrative that's driven by power? Do I have a narrative that's driven by force? Or do I have a narrative that's driven by invitation to a better way? Not of self-preservation, that's Caesar, that's Herod. Herod was all bent on self preservation. Do I have a narrative built on self sacrifice? That's what God has come to do, to be born in the sheep of the Crap to say this is how much I love you.
Hasn't changed. Three sessions in, Brent. Hasn't changed.
Ah yes the tale of two kings. The gospel of two kingdoms. Uh all right, well uh get in a discussion group, wrestle through this, talk about it, uh all sorts of questions that I'm I'm sure we're bringing up. Um so so work through it. Get in touch with us if you need to. Marty's on Twitter at Marty Solomon. I bet E I B C B. Uh go to Bammonasableship.com. You can find discussion groups you can get in touch with us.
Uh you can do all the things you need to do. Thanks for joining us on the Baymal Podcast. We'll talk to you again soon.
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