On my recent trip across the pond, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr Caleb Friedeman to discuss his new book, Gospel Birth Narratives and Historiography (2025).
In the book, Caleb challenges the prevailing view that birth stories in ancient biographies were not intended to be historical, but were rather mythic or legendary expressions of a figure’s significance. He makes his case by pointing out that biographers used a range of textual clues to signal their historiographical interest in a figure’s birth. Thus, while it may be true that not everything that a biographer narrated was historical, the gospel writers – like other biographers – were also not simply composing legends or myths when they narrated their subjects’ births.
In this post, I offer a few reflections on the interview. (If you are a paid subscriber, I recommend watching the show before perusing the thoughts below!)