.
THE EDITOR'S VOICE | LETTERS | NEWS | ASK THE EXPERT | MEDIA | ASSOCIATION NEWS
CREATING THE THOUGHTFUL INVESTOR | ALUMNI PROFILE: MASTER OF THE BUSINESS OF ART | FITNESS FUN
.
The
birth of Jesus
Robert Cherry, S BA 69, asks: Is it more likely that Mary and Joseph would have looked for a room in an inn in Bethlehem or have gone to the home of one of Joseph’s relatives, such as a sibling or cousin? In other words, is the story of Jesus’ birth in a barn likely to have been invented by one or more Gospel authors to make him poor and thus more attractive to the Jews they were trying to attract to their group of Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah?
Frederick
Bird, Professor,
Department of Religion, responds:
The birth stories of Jesus found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written some time after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in the year 70 C.E. (common era). There is no account of Jesus’ birth in material written closer in time to Jesus’ life, such as Paul’s letters (written C.E. ’40s and ’50s) or the saying source (referred to as the Q document) that is found within Matthew and Luke and was also probably put in written form at a similar time. The accounts of the birth stories differ in Matthew and Luke in a number of ways, including the fact that only Luke’s Gospel claims Jesus was born in a manger. In Matthew, Jesus seems to have been born in a house that is referred to as Joseph’s home (Mt 1:25; 2:11).
Both Matthew and Luke associate Jesus’ birth with Bethlehem, although no such association exists in Paul or the other Gospels. Only Luke has Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem while she was pregnant. This association with Bethlehem was important because this city was regarded as the city of the ancient Israelite king, David. A number of Jewish leaders during the first and second centuries of the common era claimed that David was their ancestor. Paul makes this claim for Jesus directly by referring to Jesus as a descendant of David (Rom 1:3). In a number of places in his Gospel and in Acts, his subsequent history of the early Christian movement, Luke associates this religious movement with those who are poor. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says “blessed are the poor” (Lk 6:20) not “poor in spirit” (Mt 5:3) and then adds, “But woe to you that are rich” (Lk 6:24).
None of the four Gospels were written as biographies. They make little or no reference to information that the early Christian communities may have known or counted as unimportant, such as the role of Jesus’ sisters and brothers (four are named in Mk 4:3), one of whom, James, later became the leader of the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem (Gal 1:20; 2:9, 10).
If you have a question for Concordia faculty on any academic topic, send it to Ask the Expert, Concordia University Magazine, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., FB 520, Montreal, Qc H3G 1M8, or howardb@alcor.concordia.ca.