“The accounts of Jesus’s birth haven’t ever been that influential in how people actually celebrate Christmas”
In Mark: Mary Would Have Said: "An Annunciation of What? By who? When?..I don't think so...."
To be fair, there doesn't seem to be any memory or celebration of Jesus birthdays years 1-30-ish in the New Testament. It's like they never even heard of it.
In Mark, which has no birth story of Jesus at all (and no resurrection story either) we just have Mary, who apparently knew nothing of or forgot everything about Jesus miraculous birth circumstances, and brothers coming down to Jerusalem to take Jesus home before he got himself into real trouble.
"Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.
When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said."
31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Mark 3:20-21, 31-35
(Note: Apologetics can and are made for just who the "they" of the text is. Mary and Jesus brothers, or the crowd. In my mind and the mind of scholars, they are Mary and his brothers. No one doubts they came down to retrieve Jesus)
HOWEVER...
This embarrassing bit of scripture was removed by he authors of Matthew and Luke as the story evolved over time.
In Matthew 12 we have we have the same story but without the "for they thought he was insane" part.
Mary and Jesus' brothers just show up and wish to speak to him but why is not stated.
46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
LUKE takes the clean up one step further yet.
Jesus Mother and Brothers merely try unsuccessfully to see Jesus. Jesus disavows them and does not find it necessary to even bother seeing them.
19 Now Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. 20 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.”
21 He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”
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Paul only notes Jesus was born of a woman and a regular Jewish baby.
"But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law"
Galatians 4:4
Matthew and Luke had yet to written. In my mind and in the minds of other Church historians, the Birth Narratives of Jesus were inserted later in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. If excised from the texts we see, in their opinion, and stitched back together, they read just fine without the Birth Narratives.
Example from Matthew
Matthew 1:17
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Some feel the Birth Narratives were inserted to oppose the rumors that Jesus was "born of fornication" try to show he was really born as a God-Man like the Caesars.
The Rumors
John 8:42
"We weren't born of fornication"
https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/62763/meaning-of-the-jews-response-in-john-841
I believe that it is him they refer to as being born of fornication when the father to them was not know nor no proper registration of birth and father certificate which they the Pharisees would hold in the temple.
Commentaries hold the believe that they refer to the surrounding nations and their idoltery as to mean being born under fornication."
This is what the Pharisees penned down about Jesus;
Sanhedrin 106a, Jesus' mother was a whore: "She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters."
Shabbat 104b it is stated that in the "uncensored" text of the Talmud it is written that Jesus mother, "Miriam the hairdresser," had sex with many men. "Jesus was a bastard born of adultery."
(Yebamoth 49b, p.324). "Mary was a whore: Jesus (Balaam) was an evil man." (Sanhedrin 106a &b, p.725). "Jesus was a magician and a fool. Mary was an adulteress". (Shabbath 104b, p.504).
I hold the believe that John 8.41, "We be not born of fornication", was in fact a slanted suggestion that the legitimacy of His birth was in question."
Raymond Brown’s book is great because it is the only full-length scholarly commentary on the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke.
For somebody who has grown up listening to the Christmas stories, or has made the effort to read the Gospel stories of Jesus’s birth in Matthew and Luke, but has questions about any of the particular things that are said, questions of historicity, all of that can be found in Brown’s book.
Not only is there detailed word-by-word explanation of what every single verse means, but there are also a number of helpful appendices that deal with specific issues that come up in the study of the infancy narratives. For example, the disagreements between Luke and Matthew in terms of Jesus’s genealogy.
“The accounts of Jesus’s birth haven’t ever been that influential in how people actually celebrate Christmas”
There’s also the question of the historicity of the census that Luke says was taken while Quirinius was Governor: Luke doesn’t quite seem to be getting his historical information correctly.
Also, the question of whether or not Jesus was born in Bethlehem and what the historical arguments for that are. They’re really not very good. Most biblical scholars believe that Jesus was born in Nazareth, in Galilee, and that he was later said to have been born in Bethlehem because that was where the Messiah was believed to have to come from.
But it all worked out and, over time, with tweaks and edits, Jesus became, theologically, "Fully God and Fully Man"
1 comment:
Thank you Dennis for another rigorous analysis of Christian ritual and mythology. I have always appreciated how you reference scholarly research and employ critical thinking in your articles.
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