Q&A: Have we got Christmas all wrong?
(Almost) every question you have ever asked about Jesus' birth
As advent-tide fast approaches, my thoughts have turned where they naturally turn for biblical scholars at this time of year: to Jesus’ birth stories in Matthew and Luke.
Over the past few weeks, I asked my readers what questions they had about these narratives, and have collated them in this special Christmas Q&A.
I cover what we can know as historians about Jesus’ birth, unravel the common misconceptions which have arisen around the nativity, and unpack the deeper meanings behind the gospels’ infancy stories.
If you are used to attending nativity plays, make yourself a hot chocolate and a mince pie – you might be in for a surprise!
1. Is it strange that only two gospels describe Jesus’ birth?
It doesn’t surprise me when we read the gospels as ancient biographies. While birth stories do appear in ancient ‘lives’, they are certainly not a stock feature of biographical narratives. The vast majority of ancient bioi do not provide us with an extended birth narrative, but rather some hint of their subject’s background.
2. Does Paul tell us anything about Jesus’ background?
Paul says that Jesus was of the ‘seed of David’ (Rom. 1:3). This suggests that Jesus’ Davidic lineage was recognised early on in the Jesus movement. In classical antiquity, Jewish descent was patrilineal, going through the father, rather than matrilineal. So all that Paul tell us about Jesus’ birth is that his father was of the Davidic line.
3. Might Paul contain a veiled allusion to Jesus’ virginal conception?
Some have tried to find the virginal conception in Paul’s statement that Jesus was ‘born of a woman.’ Yet this is to press the phrase too far. In the Greek translation of Job, we find the same expression ‘born of a woman.’ There it refers to a mortal human. Paul is emphasising that Jesus was a human born under the Jewish law.
4. Why does Mark describe Jesus as the ‘Son of Mary’?
It was very uncommon to identify someone by their mother rather than their father. Even if Joseph had died by the point of Jesus’ ministry, which seems highly likely, it is likely that Jesus would have been identified by his father. My own view is that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were probably not all children of the same mother. Mixed families were common in antiquity, and this may be why Jesus was identified as ‘Son of Mary.’
6. How are the nativity stories similar to ancient narratives?
The infancy narratives contain a number of tropes that fit well with how an ancient person might narrate a hero’s birth. In other stories, we have the subject’s royal or divine genealogy; the presence of a supernatural conception; abstinence before or after conception; prophecy and portents; an explanation of the hero’s name; an attempt to kill the child; and some clue as to how the child was developing.
7. Why does Matthew structure his genealogy in 3 sets of 14?
The key to unlocking Matthew’s genealogy is to understand gematria, the practice of assigning numerical values to consonants. The numerical value of the name ‘David’ was fourteen, and Matthew is keen to emphasise that Jesus was the descendent of David. By repeating 14 three times, Matthew is shouting: David! David! David!
8. Why does Matthew’s genealogy list several women?
It was highly unusual for a genealogy to include several women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the ‘Wife of Uriah.’ Intriguingly, all of these women have something in common: they are all are involved in illicit relations. Matthew is preparing us expect that God works through births which might be deemed scandalous, like Mary’s.
9. Who were the Magi?
The term magos could be used to refer to a magician. But this is probably not what Matthew means, since there is no hint that he is using the term pejoratively. More likely is that the magi (who come from the East) were the hereditary priests of the Persian royal court.
10. How did the Magi become ‘Kings’?
Our earliest reference to the magi as kings is found within the second century writer, Tertullian. He describes the magi as ‘wellnigh kings’ (fere reges) and was probably inspired by the imagery of Psalm 72: ‘The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents; the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring him gifts: and all the kings of the earth shall adore him.’
11. How did the Magi become three Magi?
The text of Matthew simply describes magioi in the plural. But there is no indication in the gospel that there was three of them. The idea that there were three seems to correspond to the three gifts and became the dominant tradition in Western Christianity. Yet still to this today, the Orthodox recognise twelve magi, not three.
12. What did the Magi’s three gifts represent?
Gold was the possession of a king, frankincense was burned to signify the divine presence, and myrrh was used as a spice in burial practices. What is remarkable is that each of these gifts are associated with David’s son, Solomon. These gifts could therefore be another way to emphasise that Jesus is the ‘Son of David.’
13. How does Matthew’s star ‘stop over’ the house?
Matthew’s star behaves in some rather curious ways! The best explanation I have seen for how a star could ‘stop over’ a house is that Matthew envisages the ‘star’ as an angelic being. In the ancient Jewish conception, stars were not thought to be inanimate balls of energy, but were sometimes identified with angels.
14. Why does Matthew include Magi in his birth story?
The primary purpose of Matthew’s inclusion of magi is to anticipate the gentile recogntion of Jesus as the Messiah. This forms an inclusio with his Great Commission narrative, in which the disciples are instructed to make disciples ‘of all nations’. Yet it is remarkable that magi also feature at the birth of Alexander the Great in Plutarch.
15. Did Matthew invent Jesus’ Bethlehem birth?
It is commonly thought that Matthew invented Jesus’ Bethlehem birth on the basis of Micah 5:2, ‘O Bethlehem… from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel.’ Yet as Jonathan Rowlands has pointed out, the idea that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem is never commented upon outside of the New Testament. For Rowlands, it is more likely that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and then Matthew looked to the Jewish Scriptures for some support of the historical fact.
16. Did Matthew fabricate Jesus’ virginal conception from Isaiah 7:14?
I don’t think so. The Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14 states that a ‘young woman’ (almah) shall conceive, and the Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible translated this word as parthenos, which is often glossed as ‘virgin’. Yet the issue of language is complicated. In the ancient world, a maiden was often a virgin, hence why the Greek translators felt perfectly comfortable rendering the term almah with parthenos.
17. Did Matthew model his story on the birth of Alexander the Great?
There are a number of more-or-less convincing parallels to traditions of Alexander in Matthew’s narrative. For instance, we have the abstinence motif, omens and portents and even the presence of magi. If Matthew did shape his birth story on Alexander the Great, he may have done so to present Jesus as a similar type of ‘world ruler’.
18. How does Matthew model Jesus’ birth on the story of Moses?
Moses’ story also begins with an (unsuccessful) attempt on his life by a leader who tries to kill a sweep of newborn males. The Holy Family then leave Israel and come back. Interestingly, the language that Matthew uses to describe Jesus’ return to Israel command echoes the command for Moses to return to Egypt (Mt. 2:19-21; Exod. 4:19-20). This is just one way in which Matthew presents Jesus as a ‘new Moses’ figure.
19. Did King Herod the Great really massacre the infants?
There is no extra-biblical record of Matthew’s grim story of the massacre of the infants. At the same time, Bethlehem was a small town and such an event would have been barely mentionable. Advocates of the historicity of this event will rightly note that it was in perfecting keeping with King Herod’s paranoid character.
20. What is the significance of Matthew’s term ‘Emmanuel’?
Not only does Matthew pick up ‘Emmanuel’ from Isaiah 7:14, but he gives his readers a translation: ‘which means, ‘God with us’’. I think that’s a clue that Matthew really wants to drive this term home to his readers. Interestingly, he returns to this theme at the very end of his narrative, when Jesus claims that he will ‘be with’ his disciples until the end of the age. For Matthew, Jesus is God’s near presence with his people.
21. Why does Matthew spend so much time on Jesus’ name(s)?
Names were incredibly significant to ancient people! A number of biographers spill what might seem an inordinate amount of ink on the meaning of a hero’s name. Plutarch unpacks Romulus and Remus; Suetonius takes a dive into Augustus; and Diogenes Laertius discusses the meaning of Platõn. Matthew’s unpacking of the meaning of Jesus – he who delivers – should be seen within this wider literary context.
22. Does Matthew’s ‘star’ correspond to a historical phenomenon?
Colin Humphreys has pointed out that in 5BCE, one of the last years of Herod the Great’s reign, there was a comet which is recorded in Chinese sources. The distant notion that there was some kind of astrological comet during Herod’s reign, when Jesus was born, may have figured in its inclusion in Matthew’s narrative. Yet I am unconvinced that it fully explains the peculiar movements of the comet.
23. Was Matthew’s narrative crafted out of biblical prophecy?
It is tempting to say that Matthew read his story out of scripture. Yet some of Matthew’s biblical allusions look like rather loose pegs upon which to construct a narrative of Jesus’ birth. This leads some scholars to suspect that Matthew is drawing on traditional (historical?) materials, and using scripture to suport his traditions, rather than simply crafting his narrative from scripture ex nihilo.
24. Does Matthew 1:25 mean that Mary did not remain a virgin?
Matthew 1:25 says that Joseph ‘had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son.’ There is a long-standing debate about the meaning of the word ‘until’ – does it imply that Mary did have relations with Joseph after Jesus was born? A recent thorough study of the linguistics of this word have argued that it does.
25. Was there really no room for Mary and Joseph in the ‘inn’?
Interestingly, there was a word for an ‘inn’ (pandocheion) which appears in Luke’s story of the Good Samaritan – but that is not the word used here! Here the word often translated as ‘inn’ is katalyma, which describes a ‘place to stay’. Some commentators have therefore argued that there was no room for the holy family in the ‘guest room.’
26. Was Jesus born in a stable?
Since Luke tells us that Jesus was placed in a manger, we often assume that he was born in a stable. Yet if we interpret the ‘inn’ as a ‘guest room’ of a house, then we might equally envision that Jesus was born in the part of a house where the animals were kept at night. Kenneth Bailey and others have pointed out that it was not unusual to keep animals within the house at night, rather than in a separate ‘stable.’
27. Were an ox and donkey present at Jesus’ birth?
There is no biblical evidence that they were. The traditional image of an ox and an ass present at Jesus’ birth derives from the 7th century Pseudo-Gospel of Matthew, which quotes the prophet Isaiah: ‘The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.’ This reflects an earlier iconographic motif, preserved in a 4th century sarcophagus lid, in which these two animals flank the infant Jesus.
28. Hark the Herald Angels… Sing?
We often imagine choirs of angels singing in the gospel of Luke. But were they actually choirs? Remarkably, the Greek words for singing are nowhere found in the text. What we are told the angels did was to ‘praise’ God. To praise God might have included singing, yet it didn’t have to. To ‘praise’ can also be to confess the greatness of the Lord.
29. Why does Luke tell the story of John the Baptist’s birth?
It may seem strange to begin the story of Jesus’ birth with the birth story of John. Yet to an ancient author, this would not have been so unusual. Synkrisis, the setting up of a comparison between two figures, was a common literary technique in ancient lives. Luke sets up a fairly elaborate synkrisis between John the Baptist and Jesus, showing that Jesus is the forerunner who will prepare the way and submit to Christ.
30. Why does Luke trace Jesus’ lineage back to Adam, ‘the Son of God’?
The genealogies of ancient heroes often trace their lineage back to the gods. This rubber-stamped their ‘natural’ authority to rule. Thus, Plutarch reports a tradition that Alexander the Great was descended patrilineally from Heracles, and Suetonius traces the Roman Emperor Galba’s ancestry back to Jupiter/Zeus.
31. What is the significance of Joseph as Jesus’ adoptive father?
The idea that Jesus had two fathers – a divine father (God) and a human adoptive father – would have been seen as very significant in ancient Roman eyes. It might have brought to mind the figure of Augustus, who was also believed to have had a divine father and human father. This is part of Luke’s counter-imperial narrative.
32. Does Luke have Mary impregnated by God?
No, like other ancient Greek writers, Luke is very careful to avoid anthropomorphism in his depiction of Mary’s supernatural conception. He says that Mary conceived by the ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Power’ of God, the same words that Plutarch uses to describe the way that gods conceived of divine or semi-divine beings.
33. Why do historians have a problem with Luke’s census?
There are several reasons why historians tend to discount Luke’s census under Quirinius. These include the lack of independent attestation for an empire-wide census and no mention of this specific census in contemporary sources; the implausibility of a census requiring travel to Bethlehem; and the clash in dates between Herod, who died in 4 BCE, and Quirinius, who became governor in 6 CE.
34. What is the significance of Luke’s theme of peace?
Luke’s angels declare at Jesus’ birth, ‘peace on earth to those upon whom his favour rests.’ This is significant when set in the wider imperial context of Luke’s infancy narrative. Luke’s readers would know of the Pax Romana – the peace of Rome – which Augustus issued through his military conquest. Jesus is to be a new Saviour who issues a different kind of peace: the Shalom delivered by his conquest of oppression.
35. Was Luke’s birth narrative a later addition to the gospel?
I am very tempted to say that it was a later addition. One reason for this is that it is written in a different literary style to the rest of the gospel. Another is that Luke 3:1 seems like a perfectly good opening to the gospel as a follow up from the preface.
36. How do the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke differ?
While the two accounts are spliced together in nativity plays, they differ on some important points: why Jesus was born in Bethlehem (it is only in Luke that a census takes them there); who visits Jesus (Matthew’s magi versus Luke’s shepherds); and the forms of the signs (Matthew’s dreams versus Luke’s angelic visitations.)
37. Did Luke know Matthew’s infancy narrative?
It seems highly likely that Luke knew Matthew’s birth story. While the infancy narratives differ in ways which reflect their own narrative interests, they also converge on a number of points. One motif for Luke’s re-writing of the birth story may have been to clear up the issue of Jesus’ virginal conception, which is not nearly as clear in Matthew as it becomes in Luke.
38. Why does Luke have Jesus visited by shepherds, not magi?
If Luke knew Matthew’s infancy narrative, which I think he did, one can easily understand why he scribbled out Matthew’s magi. Elsewhere in Luke’s writings, magic is something to be completely avoided. The visitation of the shepherds, by contrast, fits Luke’s strong interest to present Jesus as one who comes to the poor.
39. Did Luke draw on the memories of Mary?
It is often supposed that the only source for Luke’s gospel could have been Mary. Yet Luke never claims to have interviewed or even met Mary, and the dating of his gospel – which may be as late as the early second century – virtually rules out this possibility. Yet this is not to say that Luke did not draw upon earlier traditions for his narrative.
40. What are the Magnificat?
The Magnificat describes Mary’s words of praise in Luke’s gospel, which begin: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord…’ It is shaped mostly by Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2, which opens in a similar way and shares a number of the same things. It is sung alongside the Nunc Dimitis, which is derived from Simeon’s words in Luke’s infancy narrative.
42. Are Matthew and Luke teaching the Incarnation?
Both Matthew and Luke are presenting Jesus as the divine Son of God from his birth. They are not yet unpacking the Incarnation as it is conventionally understood in Nicene terms: the enfleshment of the second divine person of the Trinity.
43. How do the gospel birth accounts imitate biblical histories?
Matthew’s incipit and his genealogy directly borrow from and imitate the biblical genealogies. Similarly, Luke’s infancy narrative is soaked in biblical allusions and deliberately mimics the literary style of the Septuagint. For example, it includes frequent parataxis (‘and… and… and..’) as biblical turns of phrase (‘it came to pass..’)
44. Were Matthew and Luke’s narratives meant to be taken historically?
They are written in a sober biblical style, so I think they were certainly intended to be taken historically. Of course, this does not mean that they are history written in the style we might expect today, nor that they are historically true. But I think that ancient readers would go to an ancient biography expecting an account of the past.
45. What is the tradition that Jesus was born in a cave?
Some early Christians believed that Jesus was born in a cave. This tradition is found in the second-century Proto-Evangengelium of James but it also found in Justin Martyr. This element is not completely far-fetched since there were caves in Bethlehem.
46. What does John have to say about the virginal conception?
Strikingly, John says nothing about the virgin birth, despite the likelihood that he knew the other gospels. As with Paul, he does not seem to equate the Incarnation with a biological miracle. There are even a few passages in John which identify Jesus as the Son of Joseph and are sometimes seen to contradict the virgin birth.
47. Was Jesus born on Christmas day?
Unfortunately, probably not! The birth narratives give us no firm clues as to when Jesus was born, but some ancient peoples believed that a hero was born on the same day that they died, nine months later. In the Western reckoning of Jesus’ death, nine months after 25th March (14th Nissan) is 25th December, and this very happily coincided with the feast of Saturnalia.
49. Does Jesus’ birth feature in any non-Christian traditions?
Yes! Muslims believe that Jesus was virgin-born, and the Quran narrates a version of Mary’s miraculous conception. One of the distinctive aspects of the Quran’s account is that Mary gives birth under a palm tree, where she is miraculously provided water and dates. As with the Quran’s account of Jesus elsewhere, its stories of Jesus’ birth are a re-working of earlier apocryphal traditions.
49. How did the gnostics understand the birth of Jesus?
‘Gnostics’ were a cluster of ancient Christian groups who denied that Jesus had a real, fleshly existence. They believed instead that Jesus came to liberate humanity from the material world by offering secret knowledge (gnōsis). Thus, some gnostics were said to have believed that Jesus took nothing from Mary but ‘passed through her like a pipe.’
50. Can the infancy narratives be true if they are not completely historical?
I believe so! The birth stories of Matthew and Luke are culturally-specific artefacts, expressing the truth that Jesus is the Son of God in terms that made sense to their Hellenistic-Jewish milieu. But as we see with John, the virgin birth does not have to be equated with the Incarnation. Many theologians today believe in the Incarnation as an ontological miracle, whether or not they think it was a biological one.
Thank you for reading this piece! If you enjoyed it, you may also enjoy these:
The best Christmas gift one could wish for 🥳 Thx for this. And love the short, concise answers.
So excited to read this! Getting some coffee now. ☕️🎄🌟🥰