The Birth (Of A New Theme and A Man)

ahhhhhh, FINALLY! I am going to do what I have said I was going to do...I am going to discuss Christianity from my perspective. I will no doubt be offensive to Christians. This is not done for the sole purpose of being offensive but it is something that happens when you don't believe what they believe and are willing to talk about it.

I am not a Biblical scholar. There are many others who have done what I am doing, and have done it better. I encourage all of you to check out Bart D. Ehrman's books. I may reference them form time to time. I may make mistakes in my assertions so please feel free to point them out. But do it in a constructive way. Any comments that are purposely inflammatory, may be deleted. 

Throughout my study of Christianity I will discuss different parts of the Bible, Christian history, and basic Christian beliefs. The Bible I will be using for now is the New King James Version. The reason for this is basic: I already have it in the house. I realize it is not considered the best study Bible by scholars and I would prefer to use the New International Version or the New Revised Standard Version but the study Bibles in these version can be pretty pricey and that is not something I am able to afford right now. On the other hand, many Evangelical Christians are firm believers in the King James Version being the direct word of God, so in a way it will serve my purpose just fine. :)

The first thing I want to discuss is the basic well known stories of the Bible. First being the birth of Jesus. Please read all the way to the end of this post if you plan on making comments. We all know the story, right? Mary was visited by an angel and told she would bear the son of God. She had never known the touch of a man, so it was to be a virgin birth. Joseph, her betrothed, was also visited by an angel and told to believe in Mary's story, that her child would be the prophesied Savior. They traveled to Bethlehem in order to be "counted" for the census, only to find there was no place for them to stay. The ended up staying in a manger among the animals. Three wise men, seeing a star that told of the Savior's birth traveled to pay their respects to the baby and brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Ok, sure...

There have been others who suggested that maybe Mary had become pregnant by another. It is always possible, of course. Matthew says that Mary was found with child, "before they came together." He does not say she was a virgin. He simply says she and Joseph had not had sex. This is the reason Joseph first thinks to "put her away secretly" until the angel comes to him in a dream and says the child she has conceived is "of the Holy Spirit." hmmmm, it still doesn't say she wasn't with another man. Is it possible that way she conceived a child "of the Holy Spirit" was through sex with another man? Christians would say no, I say we can't know. Matthew uses a quote from the Old Testament to make his case, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel." Matthew says that "Immanuel" means, "God with us" but this part is not in the OT and Immanuel is never mentioned again. Also, this quote is taken out of context. How are we to know that this is the child mentioned in the OT? Because Matthew believes it is? The angel that tells so much does not say this child is the Savior of the Jews prophesied in the OT. Moreover, the angel told Joseph to name the child Jesus, not Immanuel. In my view, Matthew is stretching here to make his case and try to make Jesus fit into the prophesy.

Matthew skips directly from this to "after Jesus was born in Bethlehem." There is no mention of the travel and hardships of finding a place to give birth that is common in the well known story. Now when the wise men come, they are first interviewed by Herod who tells them to go look in Bethlehem. By the time they find Jesus, he is referred to as "the young child." He has apparently aged at least a year, maybe more. They did not come to him immediately after his birth. After they leave, Joseph is warned to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. (side note, does anyone else think of "The Wrath of Khan" when they say the word wrath? just me...) Herod then puts to death all the male children from two years and under "according to the time which he had determined from the wise men." This also puts down the idea that Jesus was still an infant. The young family stays in Egypt until the death of Herod and then travels to Nazareth.

Now let's look at the differences in the other Gospels. Mark has long been said by scholars to be the source for both Luke and Matthew. First, let's look at Luke and then we'll see how they changed Mark. I find it interesting that Matthew begins with the birth of Jesus and then tells of John the Baptist paving the way before him, whereas Luke tells of John's birth first. To me it is telling in who is more important to the story. We'll discuss John the Baptist another time.

Luke has no issue in calling Mary a virgin right away. This makes me wonder why Matthew did. Luke describes exactly how Mary comes to be pregnant, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God." I don't know about you but this calls to mind the many stories of Zeus visiting women and impregnating them. As far as I know, no one ever said those women were holy and not all of their offspring were god/desses. Some yes, but others were sprites, or muses, or whatever.

Luke does talk of the census that we know of in the story. What I have never understood is the "everyone to his own city" idea. Who does a census like that? No officials make people all travel to the city that they originated from in order to be counted. The purposed of census to know how many people are in each city. If they all leave and go "home" then you can't get an accurate count anywhere. This to me is a made up reason in order to place Jesus' birth in the place that the Savior is prophesied to have been born. In this story it is not wise men who come to Jesus, but shepherds who have been told to by an angel. There is no mention of a great star leading the way. After the birth, and presentation at the temple (not told in Matthew), the family travels directly to Nazareth. According to Luke, they do not go to Egypt because there is apparently no threat from Herod. If so, it is never mentioned. 

Now to the "source." Mark does not talk about the birth of Jesus. He launches into Jesus' story when he is already a grown man. This is very telling, considering it the source of Matthew and Luke. To me, Matthew and Luke needed to establish Jesus' divinity. Mark did not feel this was necessary to tell Jesus' story. His actions as a leader were more important than any claim of divinity. In Mark, it simply says as Jesus was baptized by John, he came up from the water and "He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove. Then a voice came from heaven, 'You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'"

What are we to make of this? If I had never known anything else of this story, my first impression would be that Jesus had an epiphany. He realized that he was special and should lead others. After all, don't Christians say we are all the children of God? How is Jesus different in that way?

The Jesus Mystery

In her book The Jesus Mystery: Astounding Clues to the True Identities of Jesus and Paul, Lena Einhorn makes several truly astounding hypotheses. She does this in a very compelling manner, using both the New Testament and historical writings from the same time period to back up her claims. One of the problems for many believers trying to place Jesus in history is that there is little to none historical evidence of him. Aside from two mentions of him in Josephus' works (which have been disputed to be legitimate), he is non-existent in historical documents (leaving out the gospel, which were written long after he supposedly died). If such a man was causing riots (as the gospels allude to if read carefully) then there should be other written sources for this. One of the claims Einhorn makes (and makes well I should say) is that if you place these same events 15-20 years later in history, then there is an enormous amount of evidence and the names that have been associated with Jesus in Talmud show up in not only Josephus' works but other historical writers of the time. This would also mean that the gospel writers were not writing of events long past, but of those that they might have witnessed themselves.

I discovered something interesting from this book, which if I had studied Christian history would be obvious to me. However, since I haven't I never realized that Paul's writings are dated much earlier than the gospels that come before him in the Bible. In fact:

Paul started to write his letters about two decades before the destruction of Jerusalem! Thus, while the gospel writers wrote down their stories more than 30 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, Paul, according to the commonly accepted chronology, waited only 15 to 20 years...Paul is probably much closer to the center of events than the gospel writers. And whatever the situation, these gospel writers seem to have been inspired by Paul to write their stories. Not the other way around.

If then, it is true that Jesus' story might be dated 15-20 years later than commonly believed, Paul started writing IMMEDIATELY AFTER the crucifixion.

Why then would the gospel writers want to place these events in the past? Why not simply tell it as it happened? A good question and Einhorn gives compelling reasons for this to, which eventually lead to her most shocking hypothesis. The gospel writers WANTED to put a veil on the true identity of Jesus. They had good reasons for hiding who he truly was. All in all, I believe thinking Christians can find this book not so hard to digest, as it doesn't call into question their faith in anyway. Einhorn uses the Bible as well as the Apocryphal books and historical writings from the same time period to form her theories. At no point does she say anything that would diminish the faith of Christians, though she makes shocking claims that could be upsetting to traditionally held views (views that were put forth by leaders of the church, not the Bible itself). However, I will not spoil the end for you. This is too good to give away. :) I will however leave you with some wonderful quotes from the book that might lead you too in the right direction.

What is remarkable is that there is so much in the stories of the crucifixion and the burial to indicate that something uncommon has taken place. There is so much that is atypical - without, perhaps, intending to be. It is as if the gospel writers wanted to convey the story as it really happened. Why, otherwise, did they not describe him hanging on the cross for three days, and dying in the same way that other crucified men died? Why, in their writing, did they let him give a signal that he wanted a drink, and when he got this drink let him expire? Why point out that those who were crucified beside him had their legs broken, while Jesus did not? And why describe that he was wrapped in 75 pounds of medications - medications that were used to treat wounds? 

Paul is oddly unwilling to travel to Jerusalem...The explanations that are given for why Paul avoids Jerusalem vary...In fact, one never really understands why Paul, especially, would be permanently risking his life if he came to Jerusalem - when the other apostles continue to work there undisturbed, and build congregations...It is obvious that Paul is afraid of something. But none of the above can explain to us why the Romans keep him prisoner for two years.

Afterward: It was pointed out to me that I made it sound as if the author backs up everything in the Bible as if it is fact and proven by other documents. I realize this may come off this way but that's not actually what she's doing. What she's done is show that the author's of the different books in the Bible may have been leaving clues in the stories that there is a very different outcome than we have always believed.