Behind the Nativity Stories
Five Posts on the Infancy Narratives of Jesus
Announcement: Christmas is a biblical scholar’s favourite time of year – or at least it is mine! – so next Thursday 18th December at 4pm UK/11 ET, I will be giving an online lecture for my paid subscribers.
The Nativity: History, Theology and Literature will situate the gospel birth stories in their ancient Jewish and biographical contexts, bust some myths which have arisen around the nativity stories, and explore the debates of historicity surrounding the accounts.
It is going to be a huge amount of festive fun, so if you are thinking of coming along, do consider becoming a paid subscriber to Behind the Gospels. To give you a teaser for what’s coming up, I have compiled a digest of my Christmas pieces over the last few years.
1. How to Write an Infancy Narrative
How did ancient people tell the stories of their hero’s births? In this piece, I look at some of the key topoi that come up in the birth material in ancient lives: dreams and omens, portents and prodigies, a focus on the hero’s name, abstinence and supernatural conceptions. By understanding these tropes, we can better understand the literary tools Matthew and Luke used to compose their stories of Jesus’ birth.
2. Five Myths about Matthew’s Magi
Matthew’s magioi are some of the most misunderstood characters in the whole Bible. Very early on in their reception, they became kings, and the Christian tradition came to fix upon their names and number. But in this piece, I argue that almost everything we think about the magi is wrong – and explore who Matthew’s magi really were.
3. O Little Town of Bethlehem: As Jesus’ Birthplace, do you Lie?
The only location that is offered for Jesus’ birth in the Gospels is Bethlehem. Yet scholars often see this location as spurious and theologically motivated. In this post, I examine some of the reasons why scholars tend to doubt Jesus’ Bethlehem birth, and consider whether there might be more history to the account than we often suppose.
4. Q&A: Have we got Christmas all wrong?
We tend to think that we know the Nativity stories: Jesus was born in a stable, the magi who visit him have followed a star; the angels sing praises to God in the highest. But what if none of this is actually found in the gospel accounts? In this massive Christmas Q&A, I answer fifty questions about Jesus’ birth in the gospels.
5. Did Matthew Invent the Virgin Birth?
It is commonly thought that Matthew invented the virginal birth on the basis of a mistranslation of Isaiah. In this piece, I propose that this scenario might get it the wrong way round. With stories of supernatural conceptions common in classical antiquity, Matthew could equally have known a story of Jesus’ unusual birth, and then searched the Jewish Scriptures for a way to make sense of it.
Do you know someone who loves biblical scholarship, and might enjoy Behind the Gospels? Consider gifting them a subscription for Christmas!