Problems With the Story of Christmas


Several years ago Newsweek published an article by Bart Ehrman about the tale repeated every Christmas. To this day there are Christian writers complaining about Ehrman's Newsweek article. 

There are two versions of the Christmas story in the Bible. They are quite different and the differences are mostly not reconcilable. One involves the genealogy of Joseph. 

Both the books of Matthew and Luke have Joseph's genealogy. Each is very different from the other. Why would those who put the Bible together make such a mistake?

There are a couple of reasons Joseph's genealogy is a peculiar thing to be included. It is there for the simple reason Jesus was supposed to be the "king" who led the Jews to victory. The person who last did that was King David. So, writers needed to make up a genealogy taking Jesus' linage back to King David. Since they could not really do this, writers made up a linage. Each of the two authors made up a different linage.

Then there is the question of why Jesus had any linage involving Joseph? According to the myth of the virgin birth Joseph was not Jesus' father anyway. So Joseph's linage was not relevant. Writers had the option of creating Mary's linage back to King David. But, well, she didn't count because she was a woman.

Another stretch in the Christmas story is the requirement of Augustus that all citizens return to their city of origin in order to be counted and/or taxed (I can't remember just why they were suppose to return). So, the tale has Joseph returning to the city of his origin, Bethlehem. Bethlehem was King David's village so that was where Joseph was returning to. But, David had not lived in Bethlehem for 1,000 years. How many years back did this so called requirement apply? Was it 2,000 years, 5,000 years or what?

A lot of information has survived about Augustus. Nowhere is there any evidence he required people to return to their city of origin to be counted. It would make to no sense to do that. What happened was the authors of the Bible needed some pretext for the manger myth so they made up the requirement of a return to Bethlehem. 

It would be an improvement if every preacher who reads the Christmas story of Christmas Eve would end by closing the Bible and saying, "So far as we know, none of this actually happened."

Comments

  1. A seldom known consideration; In Judaism, there are two strains of ancestry.
    For the civil, the father, (bar,) ((son of)) on the father's side. Example; Bar Jona=son of Jona
    for Jewish religious purposes, the mother's side is the true indicator of being a Jew. (You know your mother, but not so much the father.) He could be the fence jumping son of a neighboring "goat herder". (Your term.)

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  2. The higher critics and atheists nearly always claim the biblical details and histories are fudged to make a better story or fit a set of circumstances or belief. So without the helpful background knowledge of why there are two lines of ancestry, one would think the supposed fixers that the atheists often speculate about would have cleared this perceived error. Instead, it is likely in the view of the critics, clumsily left out in the open for everyone to see. The genealogy differences actually gives the account even more veracity with the given societal practices. Excellent.

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