A few days ago I was reading an on-line article in the Times of London. It was written by Jeremy Clarkson, a regular who normally writes about automobiles. This time he was writing a review of Bob Dylan’s Christmas CD. Though I was a Bob Dylan fanatic in my (long ago) youth I don’t think I could bring myself to listen to a Bob Dylan Christmas CD.I much admired more than one of Dylan’s early voices but even early on I enjoyed hearing Peter Paul and Mary rescue Bob Dylan’s songs from Bob Dylan’s voice. (We lost Mary Travers in 2009. A lamentable subtraction that.) Still I loved Dylan’s sneering scornful intonations so well suited for classics like Positively Fourth Street and Like a Rolling Stone. Dylan’s voice has significantly degenerated over the years (a thing Jane always maintained was impossible). Now, in my dotage, I can’t bear the thought of Silent Night in any of Dylan’s voices though I’m glad he at least wants to do something for Christmas.
But it’s Clarkson I’m interested in at the moment not Dylan. And Jeremy Clarkson regards both Dylan and Christmas with boundless cynicism. He insists that most people (right thinking people which of course includes himself) regard all the Christmas nonsense as a fairy-tale. He may be correct to insist that most of our contemporaries regard the biblical account in just that way. But he embraces error if he takes his stand with the majority.
Fairy tales usually begin something like this:
Long ago and far away…
But this story starts out when Caesar Augustus (63 BC-14 AD) was Emperor of Rome. To narrow it down a bit more it was during that part of Augustus’ reign when Quirinius (51 BC-21AD) was governor of Syria. I‘m aware that there is a controversy about the date of Quirinius’ rule. If you are aware of the controversy I subscribe to the two term solution. Then there is the matter of place. It happened in Bethlehem. Travel south-east from Rome. When you reach latitude 31 degrees 05 North and Longitude 34 degrees 48East you're in Jerusalem. Hang a right and take the road south. Almost anyone will be able to tell you which road. Five miles and you're there. It's a real place.
Have you ever noticed how some of the most apparently impossible (all miracles are impossible without God. That's part of what 'miracle' means) of Jesus' miracles are either public (e.g. the feeding of the 5000) or are amply fortified with authenticating detail? Surely the greatest miracles are the resurrections. Apart from Jesus' own resurrection we have three reports in the Gospel accounts. You will recall the case of Jairus’ daughter. Jairus was a synagogue ruler in Galilee. Synagogue rulers in Galilee were not exactly thick on the ground back then. (There were probably only about 50 houses in first century Nazareth). If the report were false it would have been easily repudiated. Then there was the widow of Nain’s son. Nain was a tiny village. There could have been only one widow there about that time whose son predeceased her. If such an event took place every resident of Nain would have known all about it. It would have been madness to make the thing up if it didn't happen. Then there was the raising of Lazarus. Not everyone in Jerusalem would have known someone in Bethany (though it was quite close by), but it’s a good bet everyone in Bethany would have known someone in Jerusalem. And everyone in Bethany would have known either Mary or Martha or Lazarus. If it were claimed that Lazarus was raised from the dead, and he was not, in fact raised, it would have been a particularly damaging lie, a lie useless to perpetuate. If these claims were lies why were enough details supplied to make it possible for the claims to be disproved? In 1872 a German archaeological team digging in Bethany unearthed a family burial crypt 18 centuries old. The tomb was sealed. Upon the seal were three names: Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Fairy tales do not normally leave artifacts in the ground.
But back to the birth narrative. For a skeptic, among the most difficult things to choke down in the Creation and Nativity accounts are the claims about Eve and Mary. At the beginning of the Old Testament sin entered the world because the first woman was deceived by the devil and did his bidding. The New Testament begins when a Virgin girl supernaturally conceives without male agency and gives birth to a Child who is, in fact, the Son of God. By secular reasoning it’s a pretty far stretch on the face of it. But let’s not leave it at a superficial level. If the two accounts are myths why is the import of the second myth so contradictory to the first myth? What possible motive or mindset originated and perpetuated the contradiction? What I mean by contradiction is simply this. Women were universally marginalized and trivialized in the ancient world. This was painfully true among the Jews even until comparatively recent times. One of the three things a pious Jew thanked God for was that he was not a woman. That it was naïveté on the part of a woman which effected the entrance of sin into the world is not surprising even if we regard the story as mythological. But what of Mary’s role in birthing Jesus? SHE brought forth HER first born. The woman is the star. Not THEIR first born HER first born. I am Protestant. I do not believe it is either desirable or wise to assign to Mary a role larger than what Scripture declares, but even by the most modest Protestant estimates her stature is gigantic. See how Woman is elevated. See how spectacularly God’s favor rests upon her in contradistinction to the males in the cast of players. See how she shines. But whence cometh this shining? And why? Of course it seems a commonplace role for a woman in our feminist generation but in first century Jewish culture it constitutes a glaring anachronism. Unless...unless the provenance of the story is neither naturalistic nor mythological.
And it was not. Nor could it have been.
But it’s Clarkson I’m interested in at the moment not Dylan. And Jeremy Clarkson regards both Dylan and Christmas with boundless cynicism. He insists that most people (right thinking people which of course includes himself) regard all the Christmas nonsense as a fairy-tale. He may be correct to insist that most of our contemporaries regard the biblical account in just that way. But he embraces error if he takes his stand with the majority.
Fairy tales usually begin something like this:
Long ago and far away…
But this story starts out when Caesar Augustus (63 BC-14 AD) was Emperor of Rome. To narrow it down a bit more it was during that part of Augustus’ reign when Quirinius (51 BC-21AD) was governor of Syria. I‘m aware that there is a controversy about the date of Quirinius’ rule. If you are aware of the controversy I subscribe to the two term solution. Then there is the matter of place. It happened in Bethlehem. Travel south-east from Rome. When you reach latitude 31 degrees 05 North and Longitude 34 degrees 48East you're in Jerusalem. Hang a right and take the road south. Almost anyone will be able to tell you which road. Five miles and you're there. It's a real place.
Have you ever noticed how some of the most apparently impossible (all miracles are impossible without God. That's part of what 'miracle' means) of Jesus' miracles are either public (e.g. the feeding of the 5000) or are amply fortified with authenticating detail? Surely the greatest miracles are the resurrections. Apart from Jesus' own resurrection we have three reports in the Gospel accounts. You will recall the case of Jairus’ daughter. Jairus was a synagogue ruler in Galilee. Synagogue rulers in Galilee were not exactly thick on the ground back then. (There were probably only about 50 houses in first century Nazareth). If the report were false it would have been easily repudiated. Then there was the widow of Nain’s son. Nain was a tiny village. There could have been only one widow there about that time whose son predeceased her. If such an event took place every resident of Nain would have known all about it. It would have been madness to make the thing up if it didn't happen. Then there was the raising of Lazarus. Not everyone in Jerusalem would have known someone in Bethany (though it was quite close by), but it’s a good bet everyone in Bethany would have known someone in Jerusalem. And everyone in Bethany would have known either Mary or Martha or Lazarus. If it were claimed that Lazarus was raised from the dead, and he was not, in fact raised, it would have been a particularly damaging lie, a lie useless to perpetuate. If these claims were lies why were enough details supplied to make it possible for the claims to be disproved? In 1872 a German archaeological team digging in Bethany unearthed a family burial crypt 18 centuries old. The tomb was sealed. Upon the seal were three names: Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Fairy tales do not normally leave artifacts in the ground.
But back to the birth narrative. For a skeptic, among the most difficult things to choke down in the Creation and Nativity accounts are the claims about Eve and Mary. At the beginning of the Old Testament sin entered the world because the first woman was deceived by the devil and did his bidding. The New Testament begins when a Virgin girl supernaturally conceives without male agency and gives birth to a Child who is, in fact, the Son of God. By secular reasoning it’s a pretty far stretch on the face of it. But let’s not leave it at a superficial level. If the two accounts are myths why is the import of the second myth so contradictory to the first myth? What possible motive or mindset originated and perpetuated the contradiction? What I mean by contradiction is simply this. Women were universally marginalized and trivialized in the ancient world. This was painfully true among the Jews even until comparatively recent times. One of the three things a pious Jew thanked God for was that he was not a woman. That it was naïveté on the part of a woman which effected the entrance of sin into the world is not surprising even if we regard the story as mythological. But what of Mary’s role in birthing Jesus? SHE brought forth HER first born. The woman is the star. Not THEIR first born HER first born. I am Protestant. I do not believe it is either desirable or wise to assign to Mary a role larger than what Scripture declares, but even by the most modest Protestant estimates her stature is gigantic. See how Woman is elevated. See how spectacularly God’s favor rests upon her in contradistinction to the males in the cast of players. See how she shines. But whence cometh this shining? And why? Of course it seems a commonplace role for a woman in our feminist generation but in first century Jewish culture it constitutes a glaring anachronism. Unless...unless the provenance of the story is neither naturalistic nor mythological.
And it was not. Nor could it have been.
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