What is the real Christmas story?

After the birth of Jesus and the family’s flight to Egypt to escape Herod’s slaughter, the Gospel of Matthew says Mary, Joseph, and young Jesus waited for Herod to die, before moving to Nazareth.

In Luke, after Jesus' birth, the family traveled to Jerusalem to present the newborn baby at the temple to hear great prophesies about his future, and then returned to their village.

For most of the past 2,000 years, Luke’s and Matthew’s stories have been combined. Their differences have been explained by theologians, ignored by most people, and treated as history.

But in recent generations, a heated debate has grown over the story, as historical criticism has taken a new look at the time of Jesus, and the emperor Augustus, and their opposing views of heaven and earth. Perhaps, argue these historians, the story of the birth of Jesus was a revolutionary political message.

Crossan: At the birth of Jesus, which is what we celebrate at Christmas, there is an alternative: If you give justice to the world, then you will have peace, otherwise you simply get a lull before the next victory and the next war. So Jesus opposes, in the name of God, imperial oppression of other people by an empire. And the empire, getting the message, executes him.

Hahn: The fact is, the infancy narratives, the birth of the Messiah, can’t be understood, apart from first century politics. But is it to be, therefore, reduced to nothing but a kind of photographic negative of what is going on in Caesar Augustus and others?  I don’t think so.  It shows that our Lord is fully engaged in the human situation of that time.

In the years since all this happened, an estimated 30,000 different variants of Christianity have competed — sometimes violently — for people’s hearts. From wars and insurrections to inquisitions and great campaigns for moral rearmament, it all sprang from a rocky place that surrounds the sea of Galilee, where a young woman gave birth to a little boy.

“This is a question of faith.  It’s not a question of history.  I think for those people who are able to have that faith and that faith sustains them, God forbid the historian would come in and say, ‘Your faith is nonsense.’” — Amy Jill Levine Jewish scholar and teacher of the New Testament at Vanderbilt University

And from that one incontestable fact, sprang all manner of interpretations, opinions, beliefs, and faiths.

Crossan: If somebody actually wants to insist debating with me or discussing with me that everything happened in Matthew and Luke, in the infancy stories, exactly as they’re told, I would prefer today not to waste my time and the other person’s time debating it.  I would say, “Okay, could I conceive for the moment that everything happened literally? I don’t think so, but let me concede it.  Now, why do you think it’s important?”

Levine: This is a question of faith.  It’s not a question of history.  I think for those people who are able to have that faith and that faith sustains them, God forbid the historian would come in and say, ‘Your faith is nonsense.’ God forbid.

Witherington: I’m saying it’s a miracle.  Pure and simple.

Will scholars ever agree on whether the Bible’s Christmas story is literal history?  Probably not, nor even on exactly what the story means.

But the fact that it has incredible power? On that they are unanimous.

Evans: If you believe that the Bible is inspired, and if you believe that the Bible is ultimately the word of God.  And I do believe that. You have to understand what it is. There are many different types of literature in the Bible.  And a lot of it doesn’t ask to be interpreted historically or literally.  It’s parable, it’s metaphor. It’s poetry.  It’s exaggerated. 

Hahn:  Now for some people, it’s just too good to be true. For people like me, it’s almost too good to be true, except that it is true.

And this much we do know: Once upon a time in a small, poor place, a young woman gave birth to a baby boy.  And changed the world.

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