What is the real Christmas story?

The story plays out in Christian communities throughout the world: Mary was told by an angel that she would conceive and give birth to the son of God.

WebMuseum-ibiblio.org 'The Cestello Annunciation,' Sandro Botticelli, 1489

But how would the world know that this child was the one?

Old testament writers had foretold the birth of the Messiah. Their prophesy included three signs: (1) The Son of God would be a direct descendant of the greatest Jewish ruler King David;( 2) He would be born in Bethlehem, David’s city, (3) and would be born to a young woman.

The Gospel writers, both Matthew and Luke, interpreted that to mean that Mary was a virgin.

Hahn: And so there’s nothing merely metaphorical going on here. It’s religious. There’s literary artistry. It is deep stuff indeed. The virginity of Mary is important because you have here an act of God. The virgin birth showcases the divine fatherhood of this child, this infant Jesus.  And it’s the clearest revelation of the divine paternity of Jesus.

Back then, in a world dominated by Rome, stories of divine intervention were not so unusual. In Mary’s time, some of the most important people were supposedly fathered by gods:

Hazleton: And this was not understood literally to mean intercourse between a god and a human. But that the spirit, everything that enlivened the flesh, that made this body human in the very best sense, that came from the divine.

During that very, time the Roman senate declared their emperor Augustus, son of god, the Greek god Apollo. 

Crossan: Augustus' titles were divine, son of god, god, even god from god.  He was the lord.  He was the liberator.  He was the redeemer.  He was the savior of the world.  Those are titles of Caesar Augustus.

But for a Gospel writer to claim divine origin for the child to be born to the peasant named Mary, in a country occupied by Augustus?

Crossan: As soon as anyone else in early Christianity starts talking about “This is the Kingdom of God,”  they’re saying “and you ain’t.”  Which is, “In your face, Rome.” This is a kind of a joke.  But the Romans weren’t laughing. 

Morrison: Treasonous.

Crossan: It is high treason.

Remember, the Gospels were written decades after Jesus birth, when Christianity was spreading and non-believers were doing everything possible to stop it. Christians were often attacked, even killed by those who felt threatened. Those attacks included stories defaming Mary.

Crossan: The claim of virgin birth, that comes first. Then the immediate counter response by anyone who’s not sympathetic to it is “If Joseph is not the father, you want us to believe that God is the father?”  Of course not.  She was either raped or she committed adultery or whatever.  So in the beginning is the virgin birth story for me.  And in the second stage is the counter story of adultery or rape.

But as Christianity blossomed, those vicious stories about Mary faded and in the intervening centuries Mary’s virginity became a primary article of faith for millions.

Witherington: Both Gospels in different ways, Matthew and Luke, present the story as the result of a miracle.

Hahn: It unveils mystery a that, from all eternity, God is interpersonal. That is eternally fathering a son.  And the bond of love is the Holy Spirit. And that this family reality is eternal and divine.

But how did Joseph react when he got the news that Mary was pregnant… and not by him? The Gospel of Luke says Mary and Joseph were only engaged; Matthew says they were married, but hadn’t consummated their relationship. Up in the Galilean hills where they lived, in the hardscrabble hamlets and the market towns, people lived by a code whose remnants have come down to us even now: shame and honor. Shame was one of the worst things that could befall a family.

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Matthew’s Gospel tells the story just a little differently than Luke does.  Matthew takes Joseph’s perspective says Joseph was ashamed about Mary’s pregnancy and intended to quietly divorce her, until the angel came in a dream to him— not her— and told him that the pregnancy was an act of God... and the baby would save the people their sins.

And by then in the story, Matthew had already provided a clincher to prove to his audience that the ancient prophecy about the messiah was about to be fulfilled. Joseph’s family tree, said Matthew, actually led all the way back to Israel’s greatest ruler, King David.

Witherington: If you look at the Hebrew scriptures as all part of the promises and prophecies of God for and about his people, then you’re always looking for the fulfillment even of small bits of it.

Hazleton: So you read again and again in the Gospels “as the prophets wrote.” So they were trying to establish that Jesus was in the lineage of the house of King David through the father, through the human father.

The father Joseph, whose family, according to the Gospels, just happened to be from the little town of Bethlehem. Coincidence or a wink at the third requirement of the prophesy - that the Messiah would be born there?

Evans: You don’t literally have to be born at Bethlehem to fulfill that prophecy.  However if you are born at Bethlehem, great, that’s like icing on the cake.

Crossan: Like "born in a log cabin," for us, means Lincoln. Born in Bethlehem? Messiah. It is sort of the graphic, geographic way of saying Messiah.

And that’s why, scholars say, the story would see Mary and Joseph would end up in Bethlehem.

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