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?