Welcome to Day 2551 of Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom – Theology Thursday – Dumbledore Meets Philip and Peter – I Dare You Not To Bore Me With The Bible. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! I am Guthrie Chamberlain, and we are on Day 2551 of our Trek. The Purpose of Wisdom-Trek is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before.   Today is the Fourtyth lesson in our segment, Theology Thursday. Utilizing excerpts from a book titled: I Dare You Not To Bore Me With The Bible written by Hebrew Bible scholar and professor the late Dr. Michael S Heiser, we will invest a couple of years going through the entire Bible, exploring short Biblical lessons that you may not have received in Bible classes or Church. The Bible is a wonderful book. Its pages reveal the epic story of God’s redemption of humankind and the long, bitter conflict against evil. Yet it’s also a book that seems strange to us. While God’s Word was written for us, it wasn’t written to us. Today’s lesson is: “Dumbledore Meets Philip & Peter.” The book of Acts is a favorite of preachers, so you are likely familiar with the showdown in Acts 8:9-24 between Peter and Simon the Magician.- Luke tells us that Simon had practiced his magic in a city in Samaria where he had been hailed as “God’s Great Power.” Simon heard the gospel preached by Philip and believed, but later, after Peter’s arrival, he tried to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit from Peter. His name has not been remembered for any great deeds, but for the payment of money for the church office (“simony”). But is that all there is to the story? Hardly. Don’t look away now, or you’ll miss what’s behind the magic. Let’s examine how a first-century audience would have comprehended the episode in its Samaritan setting. That Simon was referred to by the people of the Samaritan city as “God’s Great Power” is significant. That title comes from the Samaritan Targum—an Aramaic translation of the Samaritan Hebrew Bible, known as the Samaritan Pentateuch.- In the Samaritan Targum, the Hebrew word ‘el or, “God”) is translated as hela (“power”). God is then called “great” (m, rab). Not surprisingly, “the Great Power” was used in Samaritan hymns and writings as a substitute for the divine name, much in the same way orthodox Jews say ha-shem ( “the Name”) instead of pronouncing the divine name Yahweh. But how could the Samaritans speak of Simon as though he were God? Well, Simon was able to do amazing things. We aren’t told if what he was doing was something he picked up, learning magical trickery or enablement from a demonic power, but the effect was the same. Second, the plural of “power” (heliri) was also used by Samaritans of angels. Like many Jews and Christians, Samaritans considered one particular angel—the one in whom Yahweh’s name dwelled (Exod 23:20-23)—as the embodied Yahweh. Since this angel was viewed as a physical manifestation of the true God—the “Great Power”—Simon’s acts of magical power had convinced many Samaritans that he, too, was a fleshly manifestation of God. It’s easy to see how Luke, writing in full knowledge of the incarnation of God in Christ, would have sought to use this encounter. The drama is palpable. Philip had taken the message that God had become man in Jesus Christ to...