As I’ve said before, I love school nativity plays. But I worry about the way that some (most?) Christians treat the stories, as though if anyone asks if the events were not exactly as they’re portrayed in the school play that somehow the integrity and truth of the Bible is being questioned. “Biblical criticism” is used as a dirty phrase, and it shouldn’t be.
A serious look at the stories told by Matthew and Luke reveals some puzzles, but that’s only a problem if you’re determined that they are telling the same story. For example, Matthew clearly implies that Mary and Joseph live in Bethlehem - they only go to Nazareth after their flight to Egypt. It is Luke who has them travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem and back again. Only Matthew mentions the star, and he doesn’t say anything about how bright it was. Whatever the carol may say, there is no mention of the shepherds (they’re in Luke) having seen it. If you put the two stories together as witnesses of “events”, what they agree about is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth - and not much else. But that isn’t a problem. It’s a glory! The early church had ample opportunity to harmonise these accounts, and it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because both accounts are essentially true.
What, after all, is the purpose of these nativity stories? They’re a sort of preview of the good news that follows. They reveal what their authors believed to be the truth about Jesus. But they are not, absolutley not, biographies in any modern sense of the word. We are not dealing with objective, dispassionate writing. This is from the faithful for the faithful. Asking questions of these texts is not to deny their authority and truthfulness. It is about seeking the message that Matthew and Luke have for us by reading what they actually say, rather than reading their accounts through a filter of Primary School drama.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Kim 12.20.05 at 7:31 pm
Along with the elision of the Matthean and Lukan accounts of the birth of Jesus in our Nativity plays - such that, as Richard observes, we are unable to hear each of the evangelists tell his own story, there is the omission altogether of the “begats” (AV) of Matthew 1:1-17 in our Christmas and Epiphany services.
Granted, it would be a rather tedious Gospel reading, with people standing for it (as in the high church tradition) fainting with boredom, and people sitting for it (as in the low church tradition) settling down for a long winter’s nap. But were they actually to listen to the content, they’d wake up pdq.
But, first, as a point of background, it should be noted that Matthew’s “begats” is not the only genealogy in the Bible. It is part of a tradition that goes back to Israel’s post-exilic period, a time of immense social unheaval when the very survival of the community - its sense of identity - demanded the deployment of strategies for maintaining continuity with its origins, history, and recent past. (Remember Roots?) And Israel in Jesus’ day still considered itself to be in exile, oppressed politically and economically by Rome, and caught in the crosscurrents of Hellenism’s swirling social and religious pluralism.
As for the “begats” themselves, the point of which for Matthew is to make three links - from Abraham to King David, from David to the end of the royal house in exile, and from the return from exile to Messiah Jesus - well check it out. A theme running through the first block is various forms of sexual misconduct: Jacob and his son Judah sleep with women by mistake (the latter with his own daughter-in-law); Boaz, whose mother was the prostitute Rahab, can’t believe his luck when he wakes one night to find the nubile Ruth at the foot of his bed; and as for David, the lusty stud is so hot for Bathsheba that he arranges the murder of her husband so that he can have her all to himself.
The theme of the second block shifts from sex to violence, intrigue, and corruption. The Book of Kings records the whole sorry story of the royal succession, as one son after another (with a few honourable exceptions) kills and/or connives his way to the throne - and then engages in pagan practices to hold onto it. Manasseh, for heaven’s sake, used to burn babies alive, and his son Amon was a chip off the old block, soon bumped off by his couriers, who in turn were themselves bumped off. What goes around comes around.
In Matthew’s third section, things seem to get better - but mainly because there were no kings!. In fact most of the characters Matthew mentions aren’t even mentioned in the OT, and some scholars suggest he invented them to make up the numbers, tokeep his scheme to fourteen.
But talk about belong upfront about a shocking family history! The conclusion is clear: Jesus did not belong to the squeaky clean world of the family values brigade, the lot who protest outside registry offices when gay/lesbian couples register their partnerships, or who petition the BBC for daring to screen Jerry Springer - the Opera, he belonged to a world of murderers, liars, cheats, and adulteters. He belonged to a quite dysfunctional lot of ancestors Which is to say he belonged to us!
Bad family - Good News!
Dave Warnock 12.20.05 at 10:26 pm
Richard, Good points and an excellent comment by Kim.
I have written a post about this at 42: connexions on Christmas Scripture
Richard 12.20.05 at 10:48 pm
Bless you, Dave!
dh 12.21.05 at 10:49 pm
“he belonged to a world of murderers, liars, cheats, and adulteters.” but He never condoned the behavior by His statement “Go and sin no more”. Christ never condoned sin even when He was around “murderers, liars, cheats, and adulteters or even “other” forms of sin.”
STeve 12.24.05 at 8:41 pm
Hi dh
Neither though did he march in and start shouting about it. He seemed to connect with people and find a way through, adding almost as an afterthought - time to stop sinning now, after all the main message had coem through connecting with them.
Of course Jesus seemed to have a remakable way of connecting with people.
All of which is slightly irrelevent, becasue Kim didn;t at any point say otherwise, she merely commented on Jesus ancestory. Why is it so important for you to confirm that Jesus didn’t condone sin, when Kim didn’t suggest he did, but was talking about something else - he was one of us.
Cheers - merry christmas
Steve