The Birth and Infancy of Jesus
The birth of Jesus is one of the most well-known stories in the entire narrative of the Christian story. Alongside Easter, the events of Christmas are the parts of Jesus’ story that most westerners would be at least somewhat familiar with, whether Christian or not. The images of this event, called the ‘Nativity’, are captured in scenes depicting several well-known elements – donkeys, three wise men, angels, shepherds, stables, stars and innkeepers along with Joseph, Mary and Jesus. The story is so well known that we would seemingly have little need to discuss it. Yet, the story that we popularly tell is not among the stories included in the Bible.
When we talk about popular recognition of Christmas, Christians sometimes find themselves bothered that it has become so commercialised in modern times. Santa, reindeer, trees and snow (this one’s weird for Australians, given that Christmas can be in the mid 30 degrees Celsius range!) seem to take priority over Jesus’ birth, just as the death of Jesus is overridden by bunnies and chocolate at Easter. However, what is often overlooked is that these holidays actually have non-Christian origins. Gift giving was the practice from a Roman festival called Saturnalia that used to conclude on December 23rd. The birthday of the unconquered Sun and also of the mystery deity Mithras were celebrated on December 25th. Jesus’ birthday was hardly an object of focus at all, until around the fourth century when Christianity became tolerated, and then adopted by the Roman Empire. Likewise the name and celebration of Easter is interlinked with ancient fertility celebrations—with eggs and rabbits symbolising new life and having babies!
This might seem scandalous to some Christians, but it shouldn’t be. It is an example of historical Christians redeeming and incorporating what was part of their everyday culture into their own life of faith. What it does mean though, however, is that we don’t need to feel offended when the rest of the world sees different values in the celebration. They are commercialising something that was—in the closest sense that an ancient society can be—already commercialised! For some more articles on this, see the internet sites referenced below.
"Why December 25?" by Elesha Coffman
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The infancy of Jesus is only recorded in two of the four gospels—Matthew and Luke (Mark and John both begin their gospels with Jesus as an adult). Each account of Jesus’ birth is quite different in narrative content.
The Gospel of Matthew tells us about Mary’s visit from the angel, and her unexpected pregnancy (Matt 1:18). She marries Joseph, (1:24), and then gives birth to a son and names him Jesus (1:24). The next thing we read (chapter 2) is that wise men from the East (note: we don’t know how many there were. Tradition has said three on the basis of the three gifts they bring) have arrived in Jerusalem searching for the child due to a star in the sky they have observed (2:2) He was to be born ‘King of the Jews’. The ruler of Judea, King Herod is scared by this potential rival, and sends for the men to learn more (2:3) and asks them to report back to him (2:8). The wise men eventually find Jesus in a house (2:11) and present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They then leave the city, without returning to Herod. Joseph is warned in a dream to flee to Egypt with the infant Jesus (2:13), narrowly avoiding a massacre of all male infants under two years of age ordered by Herod (2:16). Joseph, Mary and Jesus then relocate to Nazareth in Galilee.
Luke’s setting and focus is quite difference. After an extended section detailing the pregnancies of both Mary and Elizabeth (the mother of John the Baptist, who is here identified as Jesus’ cousin), Luke describes the arrival of Joseph and Mary in the Holy City of Jerusalem due to a census conducted by the Romans (Luke 2:1-4). We are told the baby is born while they are there (Luke 2:6), and that the baby is placed in a manger (2:7) as there was no room in the inn (there is no story about the journey or finding every room in the city closed—those elements are just reported matter-of-factly). Jesus is born while Mary and Joseph are still only engaged (2:5). No star is mentioned. Instead, some nearby shepherds are visited by an angel (2:8-9). The angel mentions no king, but rather a Savior/Messiah/Lord. They visit the baby Jesus in Bethlehem (2:16). After eight days, Jesus is presented to the temple according to Jewish custom (2:22). After presenting Jesus at the temple, the couple return to their home town of Nazareth, where Jesus grows up.
While some people attempt to fit the two stories together (this is called creating a ‘harmony’ of the gospels), on face value the stories are quite different. In one, Jesus is presented as a king. His story is surrounded by kings, wise men, royal gifts, and grand symbols. In the other, Jesus is clearly a first century Jewish peasant. He is born in humble beginnings, visited by the lowly-ranked shepherds. In one, Jesus’ birth is followed by a migration to Egypt and resettlement in Nazareth. In the other, Jesus goes to the Temple and then returns directly to Nazareth, which is already Joseph and Mary’s hometown. Clearly, each of these authors had a different idea of the story of Jesus that they were trying to tell—a messianic king, come to save the Jews, or a man of the people, born among the poor.
No room at the inn?
Some scholars think "inn" is better translated "upper room", which the word means, rather than inn, which has a very specific connotation as an accommodation house for travellers. This is due to the fact that standard practice for most people would be to seek accommodation with their family, and that inns were disreputable places that most observant Jews (which we are told that Joseph is) would not seek out.
Guest rooms could be in a family home. If the regular sleeping quarters were overflowing (as they would be, if the extended family had come back for a census), then one would use the downstairs space, where the animals were kept. This could be where Joseph and Mary found themselves, as common practice in many peasant homes was to quarter the animals under the house, which would also be used for storage etc. Since the word ‘stable’ is never actually mentioned, the exact location of the birth is unknown. Stable is simply assumed, because of the presence of a manger.
But the final bit of evidence in this discussion comes down to the fact that the Greek word that is translated in Luke 2:7 as inn, katalyma, is the identical word that we elsewhere translate as "upper room" (see the Last Supper in Luke 22).
See this article by Jonathan Lipnick for a further explanation.
Two family trees
These visions of Jesus are extended through the family trees that the respective gospels
The religious life of Jesus
According to the Gospels, Jesus was a Jewish peasant who grew up in the first century Middle East under the rule of the Romans. In his late twenties or early thirties, Jesus began teaching and performing miracles of healing in the region of Galilee. He gathered a following of other young Jews, who were drawn to his message of the 'Kingdom of God'. They believed he was an 'anointed one' (Messiah in Hebrew, Christos or Christ in Greek), a prophesied ruler who would right the many wrongs in the world and challenge the 'Kingdom (or Empire) of Rome'. While Jesus did indeed challenge the authorities of his day... both Jewish and Gentile, there was no notion of violence or uprising in his teaching. In fact, the Biblical evidence we have suggests that Jesus was an observant, law abiding Jew who had known and participated in communities governed by the traditions of the Pharisees.
This may be surprising for many readers, as the image of the Pharisees we have gathered from several classic Bible stories outlines legalistic opponents of Jesus who were always trying to trap him. We lump the Pharisees in with the group of Jews that oppose Jesus, and ultimately see him executed. However, there are a number of reasons to suggest that Jesus and the Pharisees were part of the same community. While they did not always agree with each other, there seemed to be an understanding that they shared a similar heritage that put both at odds with other members of the first century world.
To begin with, as a Jew Jesus must to have followed someone's teachings, and his upbringing points towards a Pharisaic worldview. The boy Jesus grew up in Herod Antipas’ region of Galilee. Specifically, he lived in the town of Nazareth, about five to six days walking journey north of Jerusalem (assuming that—as a Jew—he went the long way to avoid going through the middle of Samaritan territory). Nazareth was a rural town, but located within an easy walk of Sepphoris, which was the regional capital of Galilee until 20 A.D. when it was replaced by the nearbye Tiberias on the ‘Sea of Galilee’ (also called ‘Lake Tiberias’ or ‘Lake Galilee’)
It is interesting to think about. We think of Jesus as living and growing up as a country boy, but the hustle and bustle of city life was only a short distance away. The stories of Jesus give us the impression of a family and man who travelled frequently. However, if Jesus and his (human) father Joseph were carpenters or labourers, it is not impossible that they would have ended up working in the nearby regional centre.
Yet we never hear about Sepphoris in the Bible itself. Jesus never visits Sepphoris or the new Galilean capital, Tiberias in the Biblical accounts. They were heavily ‘Romanised’ cities of mosaics, Roman roads, palaces and villas… not good places for devout Jews to visit or ‘hang out’. Of course, this does not mean that Jesus never went there, and the fact that his father was a labourer or tradesman means that it’s likely they were involved on the building projects in those cities. However, the omission of these key locations is significant in terms of understanding the way Jesus’ “Jewishness” was perceived by his followers—to have visited such places would have been too ‘embarrassing’ to put in writing.
In Matthew, we are given a picture of Jesus Jewish heritage as his parents had him circumcised ‘according to the law’. In Luke Chapter 2, the only account of Jesus’ boyhood in the New Testament, we are given the story of a young, devout twelve-year old Jesus discussing scripture at the temple in Jerusalem, sitting among the teachers (rabbis). The report says that Jesus amazed them with his knowledge, seemingly at ease among the scholars of his day. Of course, what is provided is only a glimpse—we then don’t see any more descriptions of Jesus’ personality until his later life. What we can say is this, however, is that by engaging with the rabbis at the temple, Jesus showed that he was part of the religious world of his day. He did not stand apart from it and we see a faithfulness to the traditions of his forefathers that is only confirmed by stories from his ministry.
In several places from the gospels, we see Jesus observing important Jewish rituals. He is baptised, according to the tradition of the holy man John the Baptist (Matthew, Mark, Luke). We are told in Luke that he visits the synagogue and reads from the scroll “As was his custom”. He affirms in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount that he is “Here not to abolish the law but to fulfil it”. In the Gospel of John he attends the Festival of Lights in Jerusalem, and celebrates Passover.
Through the adult years of his ministry, Jesus constantly crosses paths with the Pharisees, who see the spoken and written traditions as paramount. Evidence that Jesus has some sort of status among them comes from the several stories where Jesus meets with Pharisees over dinner. If he had completely antagonised all Pharisees, then it is safe to assume that these meal-time arguments would not have the opportunity to happen.
This background especially assists us as we consider Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees in the four narratives of Jesus’ life, the gospels.
Nevertheless, after three years of this ministry Jesus was executed by the Romans after being tried by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Court. While his own ministry concluded at this time, however, his followers--who proclaimed him as the living presence or 'incarnation' of God on Earth. The community that grew in Jesus absence were first known as 'Followers of the Way (of Jesus), and then as 'Christians' (Followers of Christ).
These earliest followers of Jesus were Jewish. They were part of local synagogues, sacrificed in the temple, followed Jewish dietary laws and read the Hebrew scriptures. As they tried to organise themselves as a community following Jesus' death, the early Christians faced an identity crisis. They were Jews, many of them influenced by or at least aware of the Pharisaic teachings of the synagogues. Yet Jesus, their leader and guide, had also challenged many of the teachings of the other leaders of the day.
In this, Jesus probably appealed to those many Jews who—while proud of and committed to their heritage—were too busy trying to survive and make a living to have to worry about the multitude of rules and regulations